PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 91 



Dioscorides and Plmy speak of it imder the names 

 of Petroselinon and Petrosdinwm} but only as a wild 

 medicinal plant. Nothing proves that it was cultivated in 

 their time. In the Middle Ages Charlemagne counted it 

 among the plants which he ordered to he cultivated in 

 his gardens.^ Olivier de Serres in the sixteenth century 

 cultivated parsley. English gardeners received it in 

 1548.' Although this cultivation is neither ancient nor 

 important, it has already developed two varieties, which 

 would be called species if they were found wild; the 

 parsley with crinkled leaves, and that of which the fleshy 

 root is edible. 



Smyrnium, or Alexanders — Sfnymium, olus-atrwm, 

 Linnaeus. 



Of all the tJmbellifers used as vegetables, this was one 

 of the commonest in gardens for nearly fifteen centuries, 

 audit is now abandoned. We can trace its beginning 

 and end. Theophrastus spoke of it as a medicinal plant 

 under the -a&vae. oi Ip'poselinon, but three centuries laiter 

 Dioscorides* says that either the root or the leaves 

 might be eaten, which implies cultivation. The Latins 

 called it oVm-atruin, Charlemagne olisatv/m, and com- 

 manded it to be sown in his farms.^ The Italians made 

 great use of it under the name onacerone.^ At the end 

 of the eighteenth century the tradition existed in Eng- 

 land that this plant had been formerly cultivated ; later 

 English and' Ftench horticulturists do tiot mention if 



The Smyrnium olus-atrum is wild throughout 

 Southern Europe, in Algeria, Syria, and Asia Minor.^ 



Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce — Valerianella vlitoria, 

 Linnaeus. 



' Cioscoridea, Mat. Med., L 3, o. M ; Pliny, Hist', 1. 20, oh, 12. 



' The list of these plants may be found in Meyer, Qesch. der Sot., 

 iii. p. 401. 



' Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Garden, ii. p. 35. 



* Theophrastus, Hist., 1. 1, 9 ; 1. 2, 2 ; 1. 7, 6 ; Dioscorides, Mat. Med., 

 1. 3, c. 71. 



' E. Meyer, Gesch. der Sot., iii. p. 401. 



' Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 58. 



' English Botany, t. 280 • Phillips, Companion to the Kitchen Qarden; 

 Le Son Jardinier. 



' Boissier, Fl. Orient, ii. p. 927. 



