Linnæus, in his _Species Plantarum_, indicates Sicily as the home of the common garlic; but in his _Hortus Cliffortianus_, where he is usually more accurate, he does not give its origin. The fact is that, according to all the most recent and complete floras of Sicily, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, and Algeria, garlic is not considered to be indigenous, although specimens have been gathered here and there which had more or less the appearance of being so. A plant so constantly cultivated and so easily propagated may spread from gardens and persist for a considerable time without being wild by nature. I do not know on what authority Kunth[200] mentions that the species is found in Egypt. According to authors who are more accurate[201] in their accounts of the plants of that country, it is only found there under cultivation. Boissier, whose herbarium is so rich in Eastern plants, possesses no wild specimens of it. The only country where garlic has been found in a wild state, with the certainty of its really being so, is the desert of the Kirghis of Sungari; bulbs were brought thence and cultivated at Dorpat,[202] and specimens were afterwards seen by Regel.[203] The latter author also says that he saw a specimen which Wallich had gathered as wild in British India; but Baker,[204] who had access to the rich herbarium at Kew, does not speak of it in his review of the “_Alliums_ of India, China, and Japan.” Let us see whether historical and philological records confirm the fact of an origin in the south-west of Siberia alone. Garlic has been long cultivated in China under the name of _suan_. It is written in Chinese by a single sign, which usually indicates a long known and even a wild species.[205] The floras of Japan[206] do not mention it, whence I gather that the species was not wild in Eastern Siberia and Dahuria, but that the Mongols brought it into China. According to Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians made great use of it. Archæologists have not found the proof of this in the monuments, but this may be because the plant was considered unclean by the priests.[207]