30 OEIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



itself frequently round cultivated plots, it is difficult to 

 fix upon its starting-point. 



Formerly Raphanus sativua was confounded with 

 kindred species of the Mediterranean region, to which 

 certain Greek names were attributed; but Gay, the 

 botanist, who has done a good deal towards eliminat- 

 ing these analogous forms,-*- considered R. sativus as a 

 native of the East, perhaps of China. Linnaeus also sup- 

 posed this plant to be of Chinese origin, or at least that 

 variety which is cultivated in China for the sake of ex- 

 tracting oil from the seeds.* Several floras of the south 

 of Europe mention the species as subspontaneous or 

 escaped from cultivation, never as spontaneous. Lede- 

 bour had seen a specimen found near Mount Ararat, had 

 sown the seeds of it and verified the species.® However, 

 Boissier,* in 1867, in his Eastern Flora, says that it is 

 only subspontaneous in the cultivated parts of Anatolia, 

 near Mersivan (according to Wied), in Palestine (on his 

 own authority), in Armenia (according to Ledebour), and 

 probably elsewhere, which agrees with the assertions 

 found in European floras.* Buhse names a locality, the 

 Ssahend mountains, to the south of the Caucasus, which 

 appears to be far enough from cultivation. The recent 

 Flora of British India^ and the earlier Flora of Cochin- 

 China by Loureiro, mention the radish only as a culti- 

 vated species. Maximowicz saw it in a garden in the 

 north-east of China.'' Thunberg speaks of it. as a plant 

 of general cultivation in Japan, and growing also by 

 the side of the roads,^ but the latter fact is not repeated 

 by modern authors, who are probably better informed.' 



Herodotus (Hist, 1. 2, c. 125) speaks of a radish which 

 he calls surmaia, used by the builders of the pyramid of 



' In A. de Candolle, Qiogr. Sot. Baiaonn^e, p. 826. 



* Linnaeus, Spec. Plant, p. 935. 

 » Ledebonr, Fl. Boss., i. p. 225. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient, i. p. 400. 



* Buhse, Aufmhlv/ng Transcaucasien, p. 30. 



* Hooker, Mora of British India, i. p. 166. 



^ Maximo-vrioz, PrimitioB Florae Amurensis, p. 47. 



8 Thunberg, Fl. Jap., p. 263. 



" Franohet and Savatior, Enwm, Plant. Jap., i. p. 39, 



