In spite of these records, and of all my researches, there still remain several species which are unknown wild. In the cases where these come from regions not completely explored by botanists, or where they belong to genera as yet insufficiently studied, there is hope that the wild plant may be one day discovered. But this hope is fallacious in the case of well-known species and countries. We are here led to form one of two hypotheses; either these plants have since history began so changed in form in their wild as well as in their cultivated condition that they are no longer recognized as belonging to the same species, or they are extinct species. The lentil, the chick-pea, probably no longer exist in nature; and other species, as wheat, maize, the broad bean, carthamine, very rarely found wild, appear to be in course of extinction. The number of cultivated plants with which I am here concerned being two hundred and forty-nine, the three, four, or five species, extinct or nearly extinct, is a large proportion, representing a thousand species, out of the whole number of phanerogams. This destruction of forms must have taken place during the short period of a few hundred centuries, on continents where they might have spread, and under circumstances which are commonly considered unvarying. This shows how the history of cultivated plants is allied to the most important problems of the general history of organized beings. GENEVA, 1882. CONTENTS. PART I. GENERAL REMARKS. CHAPTER PAGE I. IN WHAT MANNER AND AT WHAT EPOCHS CULTIVATION BEGAN IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES 1 II. METHODS FOR DISCOVERING OR PROVING THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 8 PART II. ON THE STUDY OF SPECIES, CONSIDERED AS TO THEIR ORIGIN, THEIR EARLY CULTIVATION, AND THE PRINCIPAL FACTS OF THEIR DIFFUSION. I. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS, SUCH AS ROOTS, TUBERCLES, OR BULBS 29 II. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES 83 III. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE ORGANS WHICH ENVELOP THEM 161 IV. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS 168 V. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS 313 PART III. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. I. GENERAL TABLE OF SPECIES, WITH THEIR ORIGIN AND THE EPOCH OF THEIR EARLIEST CULTIVATION 436 II. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 447 INDEX 463 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. PART I. General Remarks. CHAPTER I. IN WHAT MANNER AND AT WHAT EPOCHS CULTIVATION BEGAN IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.