The Greeks and Romans received the apricot about the beginning of the Christian era. Unknown in the time of Theophrastus, Dioscorides[1059] 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, Guldenstadt, 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] Boissier[1063] 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, Tchihatcheff[1064] 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 Salle[1067] 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. Spach[1068] asserts that it is indigenous in Persia, but he gives no proof. Boissier and Buhse[1069] 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 Reynier[1070] 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.