PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR FEUITS. 195 



of the objections I have just mentioned. According to 

 plant collectors and authors of floras, the species appears 

 to be more wild and more anciently cultivated in the 

 east than in the west of its present wide area. Thus, in 

 the north of China, de Bunge says it is " very common 

 and very troublesome (on account of its thorns) in moun- 

 tainous places." He had seen the thornless variety in 

 gardens. Bretschneider ^ mentions the jujube as one of 

 the fruits most prized by the Chinese, who give it the 

 simple name tsao. He also mentions the two varieties, 

 with and without thorns, the former wild.^ The species 

 does not grow in the south of China and in India proper, 

 because of the heat and moisture of the climate. It is 

 found again wild in the Punjab, in Persia, and Armenia. 



Brandis * gives seven ditferent names for the jujube 

 tree (or for its varieties) in modern Indian languages, 

 but no Sanskrit name is known. The species was there- 

 fore probably introduced into India from China, at no 

 very distant epoch, and it must have escaped from culti- 

 vation and have become wild in the dry provinces of tlie 

 west. The Persian name is anob, the Arabic unab. No 

 Hebrew name is known, a further sign that the species 

 is not very ancient in the west of Asia. 



The ancient Greeks do not mention the common 

 jujube, but only another species, Zizyphus lotus. At least, 

 such is the opinion of the critic and modern botanist, 

 Lenz.* It must be confessed that the modem Greek name 

 pritzuphuia has no connection with the names formerly 

 attributed in Theophrastus and Dioscorides to some 

 Zizyphus, but is allied to the Latin name zizyphus (fruit 

 zizyphuTTh) of Pliny, which does not occur in earlier 

 authors, and seems to be rather of an Oriental than of a 

 Latin character. Heldreich"'' does not admit that the 

 jujube tree is wUd in Greece, and others say " natural- 

 ized, half -wild," which confirms the hypothesis of a 



' Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., p. 11. 



' Zizyphus chinensis of some authors is the same species. 



" Brandis, forest Flora of British India, p. 84. 



* Lenz, Botanik der Alten, p. 651. 



* Heldreich, Nutxpflamen Griechenlands, p. 57. 



