It is difficult, from all these facts, not to admit the Chinese origin of the common peach, as I had formerly inferred from more scanty data. Its arrival in Italy at the beginning of the Christian era is now confirmed by the absence of peach stones in the _terra-mare_ or lake-dwellings of Parma and Lombardy, and by the representations of the peach tree in the paintings on the walls of the richer houses in Pompeii.[1138] I have yet to deal with an opinion formerly expressed by Knight, and supported by several horticulturists, that the peach is a modification of the almond. Darwin[1139] collected facts in support of this idea, not omitting to mention one which seems opposed to it. They may be concisely put as follows:—(1) Crossed fertilization, which presented Knight with somewhat doubtful results; (2) intermediate forms, as to the fleshiness of the fruit and the size of the nut or stone, obtained by sowing peach stones, or by chance in plantations, forms of which the almond-peach is an example which has long been known. Decaisne[1140] pointed out differences between the almond and peach in the size and length of the leaves independently of the fruit. He calls Knight’s theory a “strange hypothesis.” Geographical botany opposes his hypothesis, for the almond tree has its origin in Western Asia; it was not indigenous in the centre of the Asiatic continent, and its introduction into China as a cultivated species was not anterior to the Christian era. The Chinese, however, had already possessed for thousands of years different varieties of the common peach besides the two wild forms I have just mentioned. The almond and the peach, starting from two such widely separated regions, can hardly be considered as the same species. The one was established in China, the other in Syria and in Anatolia. The peach, after being transported from China into Central Asia, and a little before the Christian era into Western Asia, cannot, therefore, have produced the almond, since the latter existed already in Syria. And if the almond of Western Asia had produced the peach, how could the latter have existed in China at a very remote period while it was not known to the Greeks and Latins? +Pear+—_Pyrus communis_, Linnæus. The pear grows wild over the whole of temperate Europe and Western Asia, particularly in Anatolia, to the south of the Caucasus and in the north of Persia,[1141] perhaps even in Kashmir,[1142] but this is very doubtful. Some authors hold that its area extends as far as China. This opinion is due to the fact that they regard _Pyrus sinensis_, Lindley, as belonging to the same species. An examination of the leaves alone, of which the teeth are covered with a fine silky down, convinced me of the specific difference of the two trees.[1143]