110 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Schweinfurth and Ascherson ; ^ but there is no trace of 

 ancient cultivation in this country or among the Hebrews. 

 Towards the East its wild character becomes less certain. 

 Boissier indicates the plant " in cultivated ground from 

 Turkey in Europe, and Egypt as far as the south of the 

 Caucasus and Babylon." ^ It is not mentioned in India 

 either as wild or cultivated, and has no Sanskrit name.* 



The species is probably a native of the region com- 

 prised between Spain and Greece, perhaps also of Algeria,* 

 and diffused by a cultivation, not of very ancient date, 

 over Western Asia. 



Chickling Vetch — Lathyrus sativus, Linnaeus. 



An annual leguminous plant, cultivated in the South 

 of Europe, from a very early age, as fodder, and also for 

 the seeds. The Greeks called it lathyros ^ and the Latins 

 cicercula? It is also cultivated in the temperate regions 

 of Western Asia, and even in the north of India ; ^ but it 

 has no Hebrew® nor Sanskrit name,' which argues a 

 not very ancient cultivation in these regions. 



Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of 

 Algeria give the plant as cultivated and half-wild, rarely 

 and only in a few localities as truly wild. It is easy to 

 understand the difficulty of recognizing the wild character 

 of a species often mixed with cereals, and which persists 

 and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not 

 allow that it is indigenous in Greece.^" This is a strong 

 presumption that in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the 

 plant has escaped from cultivation. 



It is probable that this was not the case in Western 

 Asia ; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where 

 agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. 



' Schweinfurth and Ascherson, AufxaMung, etc., p. 257. 

 ' Boissier, Fl. Orient., ii. p. 605. 



• J. Baker, in Hooker's Fl. of Brit Ind. 



• Munby, Oatal. 



' Theophrastus, Eist. Plant., viii., o. 2, 10. 



' Columella, Se rei rmtica, ii. o. 10 j Pliny, xTili. c. 13, 33. 



' Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 178. 



• RosenmuUer, Handb. Bibl. jlterth., vol. i. 

 " Piddington, Index. 



" Heldreich, Pflane. d. AtUsch. Ebene, p. 476 ; Nutzpf. Or., p. 72. 



