ee T ea ee, Ee 
1769, i 28. 
Eo 
2 Yee 
1886] History of Celery. 601 
origin, and the variations from the wild plant have been appa- 
rently deemed great, although really but slight, except in expan- 
sion produced by freedom of growth and changes which have 
slowly accumulated through selection. 
The celery has originated from the Apium graveolens L., a 
plant of marshy places whose habitat extends from Sweden 
southward to Algeria, Egypt, Abyssinia, and in Asia even to the 
Caucasus, Beloochistan and the mountains of British India} and 
has been found in Fuegia,? in California’ and in New Zealand.! 
It is supposed to be the se/inon of the Odyssey, the se/inon heleton 
of Hippocrates, the Aleioselinon of Theophrastus and Dioscorides 
and the Heloselinon of Pliny and Palladius. It does not seem to 
have been cultivated, although by some commentators the word 
interpreted as smallage has a wild and cultivated sort. Nor do T 
find any clear statement that this smallage was used as food, for 
sativus means simply planted as distinguished from growing 
wild, and we may suppose that this Apium, ¿f smallage was 
meant, was planted for medicinal use. Targioni-Tozzetti® says 
this Apium was considered by the ancients rather as a funereal 
or ill-omened plant than as an article of food, and that by early 
Modern writers it is mentioned only as a medicinal plant. This 
seems true, for in the books in my library I find that F uchsius, 
1542, does not speak of its being cultivated, and implies a medic- 
imal use alone, as did Walafridus Strabo in the ninth century ; 
Tragus, 1552, likewise; Pinaeus, 1561; Pena and Lobel, 1570; 
also Ruellius’ Dioscorides, 1529; Camerarius’ Epitome of Mat- 
thiolus, 1586, says planted also in gardens, “ Seritur quoque in 
hortis,” and Dodonaeus, in his Pemptades, 1616, speaks of the 
wild plant being transferred to gardens, but distinctly says not for — 
food use, According to Targioni-Tozzetti,’ Alamanni in the six- 
feenth century speaks of it, but at the same time praises Alexan- 
S for its sweet roots as an article of food. Bauhin’s (1623) 
name, Apium palustre & Apium officinarum indicates medicinal 
te, Candolle. Orig, des Pl. Cult., 71. re 3 
oss, Voy. to the South seas, 11, 298. Apium antarcticum, Cook’s Voy., ed. 
9 
: Nate. Jour. Acad. Phila., n. ser., I, 183. 
Forster. Pl. Esc., 6 
ort Trans., 1854, 144. 
Ț 
B: 
7. eS 
teen pee and Scaliger’s Theophrastus, ed. 1644, p. 804. Ruellius’ Dioscorides, = __ 
Ge '529, Pliny, Grandsagne. ed. Palladius, Gesnets Script, rei rust. 
