PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 149 



not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland ^ and 

 Northern Italy.^ 



The observations on the habitat of Cannabis sativa 

 agree perfectly with the data furnished by history and 

 philology. I have treated specially of this subject in a 

 monograph in Prodrmnus, 1869.* 



The species has been found wild, beyond a doubt, to 

 the south of the Caspian Sea,* in Siberia, near the Irtysch, 

 in the desert of the Kirghiz, beyond Lake Baikal, in 

 Dahuria (government of Irkutsh). Authors mention it 

 also throughout Southern and Central Russia, and to the 

 south of the Caucasus,® but its wild nature is here less 

 certain, seeing that these are populous countries, and that 

 the seeds of the hemp are easily diffused from gardens. 

 The antiquity of the cultivation of hemp in China leads 

 me to believe that its area extends further to the east, 

 although this has not yet been proved by botanists.^ 

 Boissier mentions the species as " almost wild in Persia." 

 I doubt whether it is indigenous there, siuce in that case 

 the Greeks and Hebrews would have known of it at an 

 earlier period. 



White Mulberry — Moms alba, Linnteus. 

 The mulberry tree, which is most commonly used 

 in Europe for rearing silkworms, is Morus alba. Its 

 very numerous varieties have been carefully described by 

 Seringe,'' and more recently by Bureau.* That most 

 widely cultivated in India, Morus indica, Linnaeus 

 {Morus alba, var. Indica, Bureau), is wild in the Punjab 

 and in Sikkim, according to Brandis, iaspector-general of 

 forests in British India.* Two other varieties, serrata 

 and cuspidata, are also said to be wild in different pro- 



' Heer, JJeher d. Flachs, p. 25. 



' Sordelli, Notizie siUl. Staz. di Lagozza, 1880. 



' Vol. xvi. sect. 1, p. 30. 



* De Bange, Bull. Soc. Bot. de Fr., I860, p. 30. 

 ' Ledebour, Flora Bossica, iii. p. 634. 



' Bunge found hemp in the north of China, but among rubbish (Snum. 

 No. 338). 



' Seringe, Description et Cidtwra des MAriers. 



* Bureau, in i)e Candolle, Prodromus, xvii. p. 238. 



* Brandis, Forest Flora of Nortli-West and CerUral India, 1874, 

 p. 408. This variety has black fruit, like that of Morus nigra. 



