Origin of Cultivated Plants

Virginian Strawberry—Fragaria virginiana, Ehrarht.

The scarlet strawberry of French gardens. This species, indigenous in Canada and in the eastern States of America, and of which one variety extends west as far as the Rocky Mountains, perhaps even to Oregon,1009 was introduced into English gardens in 1629.1010 It was much cultivated in France in the last century, but its hybrids with other species are now more esteemed.

Chili Strawberry—Fragaria Chiloensis, Duchesne.

A species common in Southern Chili, at Conception, Valdivia, and Chiloe,1011 and often cultivated in that country. It was brought to France by Frezier in the year 1715. Cultivated in the Museum of Natural History in France, it spread to England and elsewhere. The large size of the berry and its excellent flavour have produced by different crossings, especially with F. virginiana, the highly prized varieties Ananas, Victoria, Trollope, Rubis, etc.

Bird-Cherry—Prunus avium, Linnæus; Süsskirschbaum in German.

I use the word cherry because it is customary, and has no inconvenience when speaking of cultivated species or varieties, but the study of allied wild species confirms the opinion of Linnæus, that the cherries do not form a separate genus from the plums.

All the varieties of the cultivated cherry belong to two species, which are found wild: 1. Prunus avium, Linnæus, tall, with no suckers from the roots, leaves downy on the under side, the fruit sweet; 2. Prunus cerasus, Linnæus, shorter, with suckers from the roots, leaves glabrous, and fruit more or less sour or bitter.

The first of these species, from which the white and black cherries are developed, is wild in Asia; in the forest of Ghilan (north of Persia), in the Russian provinces to the south of the Caucasus and in Armenia;1012 in Europe in the south of Russia proper, and generally from the south of Sweden to the mountainous parts of Greece, Italy, and Spain.1013 It even exists in Algeria.1014

As we leave the district to the south of the Caspian and Black Seas, the bird-cherry becomes less common, less natural, and determined more perhaps by the birds which seek its fruit and carry the seeds from place to place.1015 It cannot be doubted that it was thus naturalized, from cultivation, in the north of India,1016 in many of the plains of the south of Europe, in Madeira,1017 and here and there in the United States;1018 but it is probable that in the greater part of Europe this took place in prehistoric times, seeing that the agency of birds was employed before the first migrations of nations, perhaps before there were men in Europe. Its area must have extended in this region as the glaciers diminished.

The common names in ancient languages have been the subject of a learned article by Adolphe Pictet,1019 but nothing relative to the origin of the species can be deduced from them; and besides, the different species and varieties have often been confused in popular nomenclature. It is far more important to know whether archæology can tell us anything about the presence of the bird-cherry in Europe in prehistoric times.

Heer gives an illustration of the stones of Prunus avium, in his paper on the lake-dwellings of Western Switzerland.1020 From what he was kind enough to write to me, April 14, 1881, these stones were found in the peat formed above the ancient deposits of the age of stone. De Mortillet1021 found similar cherry-stones in the lake-dwellings of Bourget belonging to an epoch not very remote, more recent than the stone age. Dr. Gross sent me some from the locality, also comparatively recent, of Corcelette on Lake Neuchâtel, and Strobel and Pigorini discovered some in the “terramare” of Parma.1022 All these are settlements posterior to the stone age, and perhaps belonging to historic time. If no more ancient stones of this species are found in Europe, it will seem probable that naturalization took place after the Aryan migrations.

Sour Cherry—Prunus cerasus, Linnæus; Cerasus vulgaris, Miller; Baumweichsel, Sauerkirschen, in German.

The Montmorency and griotte cherries, and several other kinds known to horticulturists, are derived from this species.1023

Hohenacker1024 saw Prunus cerasus at Lenkoran, near the Caspian Sea, and Koch1025 in the forests of Asia Minor, that is to say, in the north-east of that country, as that was the region in which he travelled. Ancient authors found it at Elisabethpol and Erivan, according to Ledebour.1026 Grisebach1027 indicates it on Mount Olympus of Bithynia, and adds that it is nearly wild on the plains of Macedonia. The true and really ancient habitation seems to extend from the Caspian Sea to the environs of Constantinople; but in this very region Prunus avium is more common. Indeed, Boissier and Tchihatcheff do not appear to have seen P. cerasus even in the Pontus, though they received or brought back several specimens of P. avium.1028

In the north of India, P. cerasus exists only as a cultivated plant.1029 The Chinese do not appear to have been acquainted with our two kinds of cherry. Hence it may be assumed that it was not very early introduced into India, and the absence of a Sanskrit name confirms this. We have seen that, according to Grisebach, P. cerasus is nearly wild in Macedonia. It was said to be wild in the Crimea, but Steven1030 only saw it cultivated; and Rehmann1031 gives only the allied species, P. chamæcerasus, Jacquin, as wild in the south of Russia. I very much doubt its wild character in any locality north of the Caucasus. Even in Greece, where Fraas said he saw this tree wild, Heldreich only knows it as a cultivated species.1032 In Dalmatia,1033 a particular variety or allied species, P. Marasca, is found really wild; it is used in making Maraschino wine. P. cerasus is wild in mountainous parts of Italy1034 and in the centre of France,1035 but farther to the west and north, and in Spain, the species is only found cultivated, and naturalized here and there as a bush. P. cerasus, more than the bird-cherry, evidently presents itself in Europe, as a foreign tree not completely naturalized.

None of the often-quoted passages1036 in Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient authors appear to apply to P. cerasus.1037 The most important, that of Theophrastus, belongs to Prunus avium, because of the height of the tree, a character which distinguishes it from P. cerasus. Kerasos being the name for the bird-cherry in Theophrastus, as now kerasaia among the modern Greeks, I notice a linguistic proof of the antiquity of P. cerasus. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, call the latter vyssine, an ancient name which reappears in the German Wechsel, and the Italian visciolo.1038 As the Albanians have also the name kerasie for P. avium, it is probable that their ancestors very clearly distinguished the two species by different names, perhaps before the arrival of the Hellenes in Greece.

Another indication of antiquity may be seen in Virgil (Geor. ii. 17) —

“Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva

Ut cerasis ulmisque” —

which applies to P. cerasus, not to P. avium.

Two paintings of the cherry tree were found at Pompeii, but it seems that it cannot be discovered to which of the two species they should be attributed.1039 Comes calls them Prunus cerasus.

Any archæological discovery would be more convincing. The stones of the two species present a difference in the furrow or groove, which has not escaped the observation of Heer and Sordelli. Unfortunately, only one stone of P. cerasus has been found in the prehistoric settlements of Italy and Switzerland, and what is more, it is not quite certain from what stratum it was taken. It appears that it was a non-archæological stratum.1040

From all these data, somewhat contradictory and sufficiently vague, I am inclined to admit that Prunus cerasus was known and already becoming naturalized at the beginning of Greek civilization, and a little later in Italy before the epoch when Lucullus brought a cherry tree from Asia Minor. Pages might be transcribed from authors, even modern ones, who attribute, after Pliny, the introduction of the cherry into Italy to this rich Roman, in the year 65 B.C. Since this error is perpetuated by its incessant repetition in classical schools, it must once more be said that cherry trees (at least the bird-cherry) existed in Italy before Lucullus, and that the famous gourmet did not need to go far to seek the species with sour or bitter fruit. I have no doubt that he pleased the Romans with a good variety cultivated in the Pontus, and that cultivators hastened to propagate it by grafting, but Lucullus’ share in the matter was confined to this.

From what is now known of Kerasunt and the ancient names of the cherry tree, I venture to maintain, contrary to the received opinion, that it was a variety of the bird-cherry of which the fleshy fruit is of a sweet flavour. I am inclined to think so because Kerasos in Theophrastus is the name of Prunus avium, which is far the commoner of the two in Asia Minor. The town of Kerasunt took its name from the tree, and it is probable that the abundance of Prunus avium in the neighbouring woods had induced the inhabitants to seek the trees which yielded the best fruits in order to plant them in their gardens. Certainly, if Lucullus brought fine white-heart cherries to Rome, his countrymen who only knew the little wild cherry may well have said, “It is a fruit which we have not.” Pliny affirms nothing more.

I must not conclude without suggesting a hypothesis about the two kinds of cherry. They differ but little in character, and, what is very rare, their two ancient habitations, which are most clearly proved, are similar (from the Caspian Sea to Western Anatolia). The two species have spread towards the West, but unequally. That which is commonest in its original home and the stronger of the two (P. avium) has extended further and at an earlier epoch, and has become better naturalized P. cerasus is, therefore, perhaps derived from the other in prehistoric times. I come thus, by a different road, to an idea suggested by Caruel;1041 only, instead of saying that it would perhaps be better to unite them now in one species, I consider them actually distinct, and content myself with supposing a descent, which for the rest it would not be easy to prove.

Cultivated Plums.

Pliny1042 speaks of the immense quantity of plums known in his time: ingens turba prunorum. Horticulturists now number more than three hundred. Some botanists have tried to attribute these to distinct wild species, but they have not always agreed, and judging from the specific names especially they seem to have had very different ideas. This diversity is on two heads; first as to the descent of a given cultivated variety, and secondly as to the distinction of the wild forms into species or varieties.

I do not pretend to classify the innumerable cultivated forms, and I think that labour useless when dealing with the question of geographical origin, for the differences lie principally in the shape, size, colour, and taste of the fruit, in characters, that is to say, which it has been the interest of horticulturists to cultivate when they occur, and even to create as far as it was in their power to do so. It is better to insist upon the distinction of the forms observed in a wild state, especially upon those from which man derives no advantage, and which have probably remained as they were before the existence of gardens.

It is probably only for about thirty years that botanists have given really comparative characters for the three species or varieties which exist in nature.1043 They may be summed up as follows: —

Prunus domestica, Linnæus. Tree or tall shrub, without thorns; young branches glabrous; flowers appearing with the leaves, their peduncles usually downy; fruit pendulous, ovoid and of a sweet flavour.

Prunus insititia, Linnæus. Tree or tall shrub, without thorns; young shoots covered with a velvet down; flowers appearing with the leaves, with peduncles covered with a fine down, or glabrous; fruit pendulous, round or slightly elliptical, of a sweet flavour.

Prunus spinosa, Linnæus. A thorny shrub, with branches spreading out at right angles; young shoots downy; flowers appearing before the leaves; pedicles glabrous; fruit upright, round, and very sour.

This third form, so common in our hedges (sloe or blackthorn), is very different from the other two. Therefore, unless we interpret by hypothesis what may have happened before all observation, it seems to me impossible to consider the three forms as constituting one and the same species, unless we can show transitions from one to the other in those organs which have not been modified by cultivation, and hitherto this has not been done. At most the fusion of the two first categories can be admitted. The two forms with naturally sweet fruit occur in few countries. These must have tempted cultivators more than Prunus spinosa, whose fruit is so sour. It is, therefore, in these that we must seek to find the originals of cultivated plums. For greater clearness I shall speak of them as two species.1044

Common Plum—Prunus domestica, Linnæus; Zwetchen in German.

Several botanists1045 have found this variety wild throughout Anatolia, the region to the south of the Caucasus and Northern Persia, in the neighbourhood of Mount Elbruz, for example.

I know of no proof for the localities of Kashmir, the country of the Kirghis and of China, which are mentioned in some floras. The species is often doubtful, and it is probably rather Prunus insititia; in other cases it is its true and ancient wild character which is uncertain, for the stones have evidently been dispersed from cultivation. Its area does not appear to extend as far as Lebanon, although the plums cultivated at Damascus (damascenes, or damsons) have a reputation which dates from the days of Pliny. It is supposed that this was the species referred to by Dioscorides1046 under the name of Syrian coccumelea, growing at Damascus. Karl Koch relates that the merchants trading on the borders of China told him that the species was common in the forests of the western part of the empire. It is true that the Chinese have cultivated different kinds of plums from time immemorial, but we do not know them well enough to judge of them, and we cannot be sure that they are indigenous. As none of our kinds of plum has been found wild in Japan or in the basin of the river Amur, it is very probable that the species seen in China are different to ours. This appears also to be the result of Bretschneider’s statements.1047

It is very doubtful if Prunus domestica is indigenous in Europe. In the south, where it is given, it grows chiefly in hedges, near dwellings, with all the appearance of a tree scarcely naturalized, and maintained here and there by the constant bringing of stones from plantations. Authors who have seen the species in the East do not hesitate to say that it is “subspontaneous.” Fraas1048 affirms that it is not wild in Greece, and this is confirmed as far as Attica is concerned by Heldreich.1049 Steven1050 says the same for the Crimea. If this is the case near Asia Minor, it must be the more readily admitted for the rest of Europe.

In spite of the abundance of plums cultivated formerly by the Romans, no kind is found represented in the frescoes at Pompeii.1051 Neither has Prunus domestica been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Italy, Switzerland, and Savoy, where, however, stones of Prunus insititia and spinosa have been discovered. From these facts, and the small number of words attributable to this species in Greek authors, it may be inferred that its half-wild or half-naturalized state dates in Europe from two thousand years at most.

Prunes and damsons are ranked with this species.

Bullace—Prunus insititia, Linnæus;1052 Pflauenbaum and Haferschlehen in German.

This kind of plum grows wild in the south of Europe.1053 It has also been found in Cilicia, Armenia, to the south of the Caucasus, and in the province of Talysch near the Caspian Sea.1054 It is especially in Turkey in Europe and to the south of the Caucasus that it appears to be truly wild. In Italy and in Spain it is perhaps less so, although trustworthy authors who have seen the plant growing have no doubt about it. In the localities named north of the Alps, even as far as Denmark, it is probably naturalized from cultivation. The species is commonly found in hedges not far from dwellings, and apparently not truly wild.

All this agrees with archæological and historical data. The ancient Greeks distinguished the Coccumelea of their country from those of Syria,1055 whence it is inferred that the former were Prunus insititia. This seems the more likely that the modern Greeks call it coromeleia.1056 The Albanians say corombile,1057 which has led some people to suppose an ancient Pelasgian origin. For the rest, we must not insist upon the common names of the plum which each nation may have given to one or another species, perhaps also to some cultivated variety, without any rule. The names which have been much commented upon in learned works generally, appear to me to apply to any plum or plum tree without having any very defined meaning.

No stones of P. insititia have yet been found in the terra-mare of Italy, but Heer has described and given illustrations of some which were found in the lake-dwellings of Robenhausen.1058 The species does not seem to be now indigenous in this part of Switzerland, but we must not forget that, as we saw in the history of flax, the lake-dwellers of the canton of Zurich, in the age of stone, had communications with Italy. These ancient Swiss were not hard to please in the matter of food, for they also gathered the berries of the blackthorn, which are, as we think, uneatable. It is probable that they ate them cooked.

Apricot—Prunus armeniaca, Linnæus; Armenica vulgaris, Lamarck.

The Greeks and Romans received the apricot about the beginning of the Christian era. Unknown in the time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides1059 mentions it under the name of mailon armeniacon. He says that the Latins called it praikokion. It is, in fact, one of the fruits mentioned briefly by Pliny,1060 under the name of præcocium, so called from the precocity of the species.1061 Its Armenian origin is indicated by the Greek name, but this name might mean only that the species was cultivated in Armenia. Modern botanists have long had good reason to believe that the species is wild in that country. Pallas, Güldenstädt, and Hohenacker say they found it in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus Mountains, on the north, on the banks of the Terek, and to the south between the Caspian and Black Seas.1062 Boissier1063 admits all these localities, but without saying anything about the wild character of the species. He saw a specimen gathered by Hohenacker, near Elisabethpol. On the other hand, Tchihatcheff1064 who has crossed Anatolia and Armenia several times, does not seem to have seen the wild apricot; and what is still more significant, Karl Koch, who travelled through the region to the south of the Caucasus, in order to observe facts of this nature, expresses himself as follows:1065 “Native country unknown. At least, during my long sojourn in Armenia, I nowhere found the apricot wild, and I have rarely seen it even cultivated.”

A traveller, W. J. Hamilton,1066 said he found it wild near Orgou and Outch Hisar in Anatolia: but this assertion has not been verified by a botanist. The supposed wild apricot of the ruins of Baalbek, described by Eusèbe de Salle1067 is, from what he says of the leaf and fruit, totally different to the common apricot. Boissier, and the different collectors who sent him plants from Syria and Lebanon, do not appear to have seen the species. Spach1068 asserts that it is indigenous in Persia, but he gives no proof. Boissier and Buhse1069 do not mention it in their list of the plants of Transcaucasia and Persia. It is useless to seek its origin in Africa. The apricots which Reynier1070 says he saw, “almost wild,” in Upper Egypt must have sprung from stones grown in cultivated ground, as is seen in Algeria.1071 Schweinfurth and Ascherson,1072 in their catalogue of the plants of Egypt and Abyssinia, only mention the species as cultivated. Besides, if it had existed formerly in the north of Africa it would have been early known to the Hebrews and the Romans. Now there is no Hebrew name, and Pliny says its introduction at Rome took place thirty years before he wrote.

Carrying our researches eastward, we find that Anglo-Indian botanists1073 are agreed in considering that the apricot, which is generally cultivated in the north of India and in Thibet, is not wild in those regions; but they add that it has a tendency to become naturalized, and that it is found upon the site of ruined villages. Messrs. Schlagintweit brought specimens from the northwest provinces of India, and from Thibet, which Westmael verified,1074 but he was kind enough to write to me that he cannot affirm that it was wild, since the collector’s label gives no information on that head.

Roxburgh,1075 who did not neglect the question of origin, says, speaking of the apricot, “native of China as well as the west of Asia.” I read in Dr. Bretschneider’s curious little work,1076 drawn up at Pekin, the following passage, which seems to me to decide the question in favour of a Chinese origin: – “Sing, as is well known, is the apricot (Prunus armeniaca). The character (a Chinese sign printed on p. 10) does not exist as indicating a fruit, either in the Shu-king, or in the Shi-king, Cihouli, etc., but the Shan-hai-king says that several sings grow upon the hills (here a Chinese character). Besides, the name of the apricot is represented by a particular sign which may show that it is indigenous in China.” The Shan-hai-king is attributed to the Emperor Yü, who lived in 2205-2198 B.C. Decaisne,1077 who was the first to suspect the Chinese origin of the apricot, has recently received from Dr. Bretschneider some specimens accompanied by the following note: – “No. 24, apricot wild in the mountains of Pekin, where it grows in abundance; the fruit is small (an inch and a quarter in diameter), the skin red and yellow; the flesh salmon colour, sour, but eatable. No. 25, the stone of the apricot cultivated round Pekin. The fruit is twice as large as that of the wild tree.”1078 Decaisne adds, in the letter he was good enough to write to me, “In shape and surface the stones are exactly like those of our small apricots; they are smooth and not pitted.” The leaves he sent me are certainly those of the apricot.

The apricot is not mentioned in Japan, or in the basin of the river Amoor.1079 Perhaps the cold of the winter is too great. If we recollect the absence of communication in ancient times between China and India, and the assertions that the plant is indigenous in both countries, we are at first tempted to believe that the ancient area extended from the north-west of India to China. However, if we wish to adopt this hypothesis, we must also admit that the culture of the apricot spread very late towards the West.1080 For no Sanskrit or Hebrew name is known, but only a Hindu name, zard alu, and a Persian name, mischmisch, which has passed into Arabic.1081 How is it to be supposed that so excellent a fruit, and one which grows in abundance in Western Asia, spread so slowly from the north-west of India towards the Græco-Roman world? The Chinese knew it two or three thousand years before the Christian era. Changkien went as far as Bactriana, a century before our era, and he was the first to make the West known to his fellow-countrymen.1082 It was then, perhaps, that the apricot was introduced in Western Asia, and that it was cultivated and became naturalized here and there in the north-west of India, and at the foot of the Caucasus, by the scattering of the stones beyond the limits of the plantations.