Hohenacker[1024] saw _Prunus cerasus_ at Lenkoran, near the Caspian Sea, and Koch[1025] 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] Grisebach[1027] 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 Steven[1030] only saw it cultivated; and Rehmann[1031] 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 Italy[1034] 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 passages[1036] 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”—