The cabbage in its wild state, as it is represented in _Eng. Bot._, t. 637, the _Flora Danica_, t. 2056, and elsewhere, is found on the rocks by the sea-shore: (1) in the Isle of Laland, in Denmark, the island of Heligoland, the south of England and Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the islands off the coast of Charente Inférieure;[323] (2) on the north coast of the Mediterranean, near Nice, Genoa, and Lucca.[324] A traveller of the last century, Sibthorp, said that he found it at Mount Athos, but this has not been confirmed by any modern botanist, and the species appears to be foreign in Greece, on the shores of the Caspian, as also in Siberia, where Pallas formerly said he had seen it, and in Persia.[325] Not only the numerous travellers who have explored these countries have not found the cabbage, but the winters of the east of Europe and of Siberia appear to be too severe for it. Its distribution into somewhat isolated places, and in two different regions of Europe, suggests the suspicion either that plants apparently indigenous may in several cases be the result of self-sowing from cultivation,[326] or that the species was formerly common, and is tending to disappear. Its presence in the western islands of Europe favours the latter hypothesis, but its absence in the islands of the Mediterranean is opposed to it.[327] Let us see whether historical and philological data add anything to the facts of geographical botany. In the first place, it is in Europe that the countless varieties of cabbage have been formed,[328] principally since the days of the ancient Greeks. Theophrastus distinguished three, Pliny double that number, Tournefort twenty, De Candolle more than thirty. These modifications did not come from the East—another sign of an ancient cultivation in Europe and of a European origin. The common names are also numerous in European languages, and rare or modern in those of Asia. Without repeating a number of names I have given elsewhere,[329] I shall mention the five or six distinct and ancient roots from which the European names are derived. _Kap_ or _kab_ in several Keltic and Slav names. The French name _cabus_ comes from it. Its origin is clearly the same as that of _caput_, because of the head-shaped form of the cabbage. _Caul_, _kohl_, in several Latin (_caulis_, stem or cabbage), German (_Chôli_ in Old German, _Kohl_ in modern German, _kaal_ in Danish), and Keltic languages (_kaol_ and _kol_ in Breton, _cal_ in Irish).[330] _Bresic_, _bresych_, _brassic_, of the Keltic and Latin (_brassica_) languages, whence, probably, _berza_ and _verza_ of the Spaniards and Portuguese, _varza_ of the Roumanians.[331] _Aza_ of the Basques (Iberians), considered by de Charencey[332] as proper to the Euskarian tongue, but which differs little from the preceding. _Krambai_, _crambe_, of the Greeks and Latins.