358 
M. Link on the Ancient History of 
know the native region with any certainty. If we consult the 
systematical writers, we indeed find the native regions of all of 
them confidently mentioned, and especially the fields of central 
and southern Europe are considered as having this distinction. 
It is here that the Chick-pea, Pease, Lentils, Vetches, Lupines, 
and others of the same kind, have been supposed to grow. But 
can we affirm with certainty, that a species grows wild in a place, 
when only now and then a plant of it is there seen to shoot, and 
is lost again perhaps the following year, especially if it is at the 
same time cultivated in that region ? How easily may a seed, 
dropped by accident with the grain, produce such a plant ? It 
does not seem to be recollected, that such plants grow decided- 
ly and in quantities annually, on those fields which are their 
native places, as we perceive in the weeds, Sinapis arvensis , 
Raphanus raphanistrum , Centaur ea cyanus , and others. In 
the Floras, too, we find the habitats of the cultivated legumi- 
nous plants given in but an uncertain manner ; commonly the 
Linnaean habitat in agris or inter segetes is copied. It must 
be granted, that in the fields of Germany, and in the northern 
countries of Europe, neither beans nor pease, vetches, chick- 
pease, nor other similar plants, are properly in their native re- 
gions ; and I may venture to assert the same thing regarding 
the south of Europe, in so far as it is known to me. Gerard, 
who has published a very good Flora of one of the countries in 
the south of Europe, which are the richest in vegetables, says, 
while speaking of Lathyrus sativus , (Flora Gallo-provincialis, 
p. 494.) : Provenit in agris , cultis et incultis , liinc indigenus 
Jactus , sicut Lathyrus cicera : And further, Lathyrus , Ci- 
cera lens , ervum inter indigenas enumerari possunt , cum non 
solum inter segetes cum cerealibus oriantur ^ sed etiam in agris 
incultis quandoque sponte proveniant. This is an excellent de- 
scription of the manner in which these plants are wild in the 
south of Europe, but it is a description from which we may 
conclude, that the author is not speaking of that situation in 
which they are naturally wild. With the species of grain, the 
leguminous fruits also now belong to countries where they are 
no longer in their primitive situation, or to lands where they 
have been quite extirpated, and have passed into a state of cul- 
tivation. 
