Formerly _Raphanus sativus_ was confounded with kindred species of the Mediterranean region, to which certain Greek names were attributed; but Gay, the botanist, who has done a good deal towards eliminating these analogous forms,[28] considered _R. sativus_ as a native of the East, perhaps of China. Linnæus also supposed this plant to be of Chinese origin, or at least that variety which is cultivated in China for the sake of extracting oil from the seeds.[29] Several floras of the south of Europe mention the species as subspontaneous or escaped from cultivation, never as spontaneous. Ledebour had seen a specimen found near Mount Ararat, had sown the seeds of it and verified the species.[30] However, Boissier,[31] in 1867, in his _Eastern Flora_, says that it is only subspontaneous in the cultivated parts of Anatolia, near Mersivan (according to Wied), in Palestine (on his own authority), in Armenia (according to Ledebour), and probably elsewhere, which agrees with the assertions found in European floras.[32] Buhse names a locality, the Ssahend mountains, to the south of the Caucasus, which appears to be far enough from cultivation. The recent _Flora of British India_[33] and the earlier _Flora of Cochin-China_ by Loureiro, mention the radish only as a cultivated species. Maximowicz saw it in a garden in the north-east of China.[34] Thunberg speaks of it as a plant of general cultivation in Japan, and growing also by the side of the roads,[35] but the latter fact is not repeated by modern authors, who are probably better informed.[36] Herodotus (_Hist._, 1. 2, c. 125) speaks of a radish which he calls _surmaia_, used by the builders of the pyramid of Cheops, according to an inscription upon the monument. Unger[37] copied from Lepsius’ work two drawings from the temple of Karnak, of which the first, at any rate, appears to represent the radish. From all this we gather, first, that the species spreads easily from cultivation in the west of Asia and the south of Europe, while it does not appear with certainty in the flora of Eastern Asia; and secondly, that in the regions south of the Caucasus it is found without any sign of culture, so that we are led to suppose that the plant is wild there. From these two reasons it appears to have come originally from Western Asia between Palestine, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, perhaps also from Greece; its cultivation spreading east and west from a very early period.