PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS, 209 



in Theophrastus, as now Jcerasaia among the modem 

 Greeks, I notice a linguistic proof of the antiquity of 

 P. cerasus. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelas- 

 gians, call the latter vyssvne, an ancient name which 

 reappears in the German Wechsel, and the Italian visciolo} 

 As the Allsinians have also the name Jcerasie for P. 

 avium, it is probable that their ancestors very clearly 

 distinguished the two species by different names, perhaps 

 before the arrival of the Hellenes in Greece. 



Another indication of antiquity may be seen in Virgil 

 {Qeor. ii. 17) — 



" Pnllnlat ab radioe aliis densissima silva 

 Ut cerasis nlmisqne "— 



which applies to P. cerasus, not to P. avium. 



Two paintings of the cherry tree were found afr 

 Pompeii, but it seems that it cannot be discovered to 

 which of the two species they should be attributed-^ 

 Comes calls them Prunus cerasus. 



Any archfeological discovery would be more con- 

 vincing. The stones of the two species present a differ- 

 ence in the furrow or groove, which has not escaped the 

 observation of Heer and Sordelli. Unfortunately, only 

 one stone of P. cerasus has been found in the pre- 

 historic settlements of Italy and Switzerland, and what 

 is more, it is not quite certain fi'om what stratum it 

 was taken. It appears that it was a non-arch«ological 

 stratum,* 



From all these data, somewhat contradictory and 

 sufficiently vague, I am inclined to admit that Prunus 

 cerasus was known and already becoming naturalized 

 at the beginning of Greek civilization, and a little later 

 in Italy before the epoch when Lucullus brought a 

 cherry tree from Asia Minor. Pages might be tran- 

 scribed from authors, even modem ones, who attribute, 

 after Pliny, the introduction of the cherry into Italy to 



• Ad. Pictet quotes forms of the same name in Persian, Turkish, and 

 Russian, and derives from the same source the French word guigne, now 

 used for certain varieties of the cherry. 



• Schouw, Die Erde, p. 44 ; Comes, III. delle Piante, etc., in 4to, p. 50. 



• Sordelli, Pitmte della torhiera di Lagozza, p. 40. 



