Like most of the _Sapindaceæ_, the nepheliums are trees. This one has been cultivated in the south of China, India, and the Malay Archipelago from a date of which we cannot be certain. Chinese authors living at Pekin only knew the _Litchi_ late in the third century of our era.[1573] Its introduction into Bengal took place at the end of the eighteenth century.[1574] Every one admits that the species is a native of the south of China, and, Blume[1575] adds, of Cochin-China and the Philippine Isles, but it does not seem that any botanist has found it in a truly wild state. This is probably because the southern part of China towards Siam has been little visited. In Cochin-China and in Burmah and at Chittagong the _Litchi_ is only cultivated.[1576] +Longan+—_Nephelium longana_, Cambessides. This second species, very often cultivated in Southern Asia, like the _Litchi_, is wild in British India, from Ceylon and Concan as far as the mountains to the east of Bengal, and in Pegu.[1577] The Chinese introduced it into the Malay Archipelago some centuries ago. +Rambutan+—_Nephelium lappaceum_, Linnæus. It is said to be wild in the Indian Archipelago, where it must have been long cultivated, to judge from the number of its varieties. A Malay name, given by Blume, signifies wild tree. Loureiro says it is wild in Cochin-China and Java. Yet I find no confirmation for Cochin-China in modern works, nor even for the islands. The new flora of British India[1578] indicates it at Singapore and Malacca without affirming that it is indigenous, on which head the labels in herbaria commonly tell us nothing. Certainly the species is not wild on the continent of Asia, in spite of the vague expressions of Blume and Miquel,[1579] but it is more probably a native of the Malay Archipelago. In spite of the reputation of the nepheliums, of which the fruit can be exported, it does not appear that these trees have been introduced into the tropical colonies of Africa and America except into a few gardens as curiosities. +Pistachio Nut+—_Pistacia vera_, Linnæus. The pistachio, a shrub belonging to the order _Anacardiaceæ_, grows naturally in Syria. Boissier[1580] found it to the north of Damascus in Anti-Lebanon, and he saw specimens of it brought from Mesopotamia, but he could not be sure that they were found wild. There is the same doubt about branches gathered in Arabia, which have been mentioned by some writers. Pliny and Galen[1581] knew that the species was a Syrian one. The former tells us that the plant was introduced into Italy by Vitellius at the end of the reign of Tiberius, and thence into Spain by Flavius Pompeius. There is no reason to believe that the cultivation of the pistachio was ancient even in its primitive country, but it is practised in our own day in the East, as well as in Sicily and Tunis. In the south of France and Spain it is of little importance. +Broad Bean+—_Faba vulgaris_, Mœnch; _Vicia faba_, Linnæus.