233 A Study of Garden Lettuce. [ March, 
blistered than are the Cos. Columella was a native of Gades, 
but resided principally at Rome. He? speaks of two kinds which 
may belong to this class, one the Cappadocean “Tertia, que 
spisso, sed puro vertice pallet,” and “quz pallido and pexo denso- 
que folio viret;” the other the Tartesian or Bætica, which he 
says is from his country : 
“Et mæ, quam generant Tartesi litore Gades 
Candida vibrato discrimine, candida thyrso est,” > 
and “ quz deinde candida est and crispissimi folii, ut in provincia 
Betica and finibus Gaditani municippii.” The words “ vibrato 
discrimine ” and “ crispissimi folii” would imply a curled cutting 
lettuce. The heading lettuces of this 
known to the writers of the sixteen# seventeenth centuries. 
Anton Pinaeus,? 1561, figures one which closely resembles the 
stone tennis ball variety of our gardens, and Bauhin in his syn- 
onymy identifies with varieties described by Tragus, 1553, Tab- 
ernzmontanus 1588, Matthiolus 1586, Gerarde 1 507, etc; etc. 
Whether the types of the Cos and the cabbage form-species 
occur in nature, I have not the material for study to determine. 
De Candolle? says “ botanists are agreed in considering the culti- 
vated lettuce as a modification of the wild species called Lactuca 
scariola. The latter grows in temperate and Southern Europe, 
in the Canary isles, Madeira, Algeria, Abyssinia and in the tem- 
perate regions of Eastern Asia. Boissier speaks of specimens 
from Arabia Petrea to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. He men- 
tions a variety with crinkled‘ leaves, similar, therefore, to some of 
our garden lettuces, which the traveler Hausknecht brought with 
him from the mountains of Kurdistan. I have a specimen from 
Siberia, found near the River Irtysch, and it is now known with 
certainty that the species grows in the north of India, in Kash- 
mir and in Nepal.” From this reference we might infer that the 
Kurdistan form belonged to the cabbage type, as possessing dis- 
tinctly wrinkled or savoy-like leaves, while the description of the 
ordinary L. scariola of Europe implies the Cos type. : 
I have not opportunity of access to herbariums whereby I can 
hope to satisfy myself of the condition of the wild forms from 
1 De Re Rustica, x, l. 183; XI, c. 35 tb. 18S 
* Hist. Plants, 1561. 
Origin of Cultivated Plants, 1885, p. 95. 
_*The werd in the original French edition, p. 76, is crispee, which should rather 
be translated wrinkled or bullate, eS 
ss were, however, well 
