On the other hand, there are many localities in the region extending from Mesopotamia and Turkestan to Algeria, where excellent botanists have found the almond tree quite wild. Boissier[1087] has seen specimens gathered in rocky ground in Mesopotamia, Aderbijan, Turkestan, Kurdistan, and in the forests of the Anti-Lebanon. Karl Koch[1088] has not found it wild to the south of the Caucasus, nor Tchihatcheff in Asia Minor. Cosson[1089] found natural woods of almond trees near Saida in Algeria. It is also regarded as wild on the coasts of Sicily and of Greece;[1090] but there, and still more in the localities in which it occurs in Italy, Spain, and France, it is probable, and almost certain, that it springs from the casual dispersal of the nuts from cultivation. The antiquity of its existence in Western Asia is proved by Hebrew names for the almond tree—_schaked_, _luz_ or _lus_ (which recurs in the Arabic _louz_), and _schekedim_ for the nut.[1091] The Persians have another name, _badam_, but I do not know how old this is. Theophrastus and Dioscorides[1092] mention the almond by an entirely different name, _amugdalai_, translated by the Latins into _amygdalus_. It may be inferred from this that the Greeks did not receive the species from the interior of Asia, but found it in their own country, or at least in Asia Minor. The almond tree is represented in several frescoes found at Pompeii.[1093] Pliny[1094] doubts whether the species was known in Italy in Cato’s time, because it was called the Greek nut. It is very possible that the almond was introduced into Italy from the Greek islands. Almonds have not been found in the _terra-mare_ of the neighbourhood of Parma, even in the upper layers. The late introduction of the species into Italy, and the absence of naturalization in Sardinia and Spain,[1095] incline me to doubt whether it is really indigenous in the north of Africa and Sicily. In the latter countries it was more probably naturalized some centuries ago. In confirmation of this hypothesis, I note that the Berber name of the almond, _talouzet_,[1096] is evidently connected with the Arabic _louz_, that is to say with the language of the conquerors who came after the Romans. In Western Asia, on the contrary, and even in some parts of Greece, it may be regarded as indigenous from prehistoric time. I do not say primitive, for everything was preceded by something else. I remark finally that the difference between bitter and sweet almonds was known to the Greeks and even to the Hebrews. +Peach+—_Amygdalus persica_, Linnæus; _Persica vulgaris_, Miller; _Prunus persica_, Bentham and Hooker. I will quote the article in which I formerly[1097] attributed a Chinese origin to the peach, a contrary opinion to that which prevailed at the time, and which people who are not on a par with modern science continue to reproduce. I will afterwards give the facts discovered since 1855.