THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 563 



in certain districts of Patagonia, and dispossess the right- 

 ful owners. In bringing our most useful cereal from 

 Asia we have brought with it the cockle, the wild poppy, 

 and the corn-flower, which enamel our harvests with such 

 lively colours. 



Our wants have caused us to import the greatest joart 

 of our alimentary plants from Asia. Wheat evidently 

 comes from Persia; Michaux and Olivier observed it there 

 in the Avild state. The vine, the olive, and the walnut-tree 

 were brought to us from the mountains of Asia. The 

 citron-tree comes originally from Media, and the orange- 

 tree from China.^ 



It is owing to this variety in the means of transport 

 that vegetation has established itself with such great 

 rapidity on all parts of the globe which have been laid 



^ The wild radish {Raphanus raphanistrum, Linn.), often called the white 

 charlock or twisted charlock, which is originally from Asia, was clandestinely intro- 

 duced into our fields when the cereals were brought hither. [Among the strangest 

 varieties in valuable plants of this kind, and which, if the theory of their origin 

 be correct, show perhaps most of all what changes difference of soil and climate 

 effects, might very well be ranged the Tarragona cauliflower, a garden variety 

 of the Brassica oleracea, and the Jersey or cow cabbage, much grown in the 

 Channel Islands and La Vendee, which sends up a tall stem sometimes twelve 

 feet in height. — Tr.] Spinach comes from Media. The lentil {Ervum lens, Linn.) 

 and the common haricot {Phaseoltis vulgaris) are probably derived from Arabia; 

 melons and cucumbers from the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris ; the lilac 

 {Sijringa vulgaris) first came from Asia to Vienna, and then spread through 

 Europe. The lily [Liliuin candidmn) is from the mountains of Syria. The 

 weeping willow {Salix bahylonica, Linn.) was transplanted from the plains of 

 Baljylou, and spread through Europe by means of the poet Pope, who received a 

 specimen from Smyrna. Tradition relates that the father of all our orange-trees in 

 Europe is still to be seen in the convent of St. Sabina, on the Aventine Hill in 

 Rome, and it is maintained that it was planted by St. Dominic, a.d. 1201), The 

 Hortensia, dedicated by Comerson to Hortensia Lepaute, who distinguished herself 

 in astronomy, comes originally from Japan, whence it only arrived in 1788. It 

 is from this island also that the camelia comes, having been brought from thence 

 by E. P. Cameli. Mexico also furnishes an abundance of cacti. The dahlia was 

 imported from Mexico, and thus named in honour of a Swedish botanist, 

 Andrew Dahl. 



