Although the indigenous species was to be found at such a little distance, I am very doubtful whether the ancient Egyptians cultivated the cardoon or the artichoke. Pickering and Unger[390] believed they recognized it in some of the drawings on the monuments; but the two figures which Unger considers the most admissible seem to me extremely doubtful. Moreover, no Hebrew name is known, and the Jews would probably have spoken of this vegetable had they seen it in Egypt. The diffusion of the species in Asia must have taken place somewhat late. There is an Arab name, _hirschuff_ or _kerschouff_, and a Persian name, _kunghir_,[391] but no Sanskrit name, and the Hindus have taken the Persian word _kunjir_,[392] which shows that it was introduced at a late epoch. Chinese authors do not mention any _Cynara_.[393] The cultivation of the artichoke was only introduced into England in 1548.[394] One of the most curious facts in the history of _Cynara cardanculus_ is its naturalization in the present century over a vast extent of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, where its abundance is a hindrance to travellers.[395] It is becoming equally troublesome in Chili.[396] It is not asserted that the artichoke has anywhere been naturalized in this manner, and this is another sign of its artificial origin. +Lettuce+—_Latuca Scariola_, var. _sativa_. Botanists are agreed in considering the cultivated lettuce as a modification of the wild species called _Latuca Scariola_.[397] The latter grows in temperate and southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira,[398] Algeria,[399] Abyssinia,[400] and in the temperate regions of Eastern Asia. Boissier speaks of specimens from Arabia Petrea to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.[401] He mentions a variety with crinkled leaves, similar therefore to some of our garden lettuces, which the traveller Hausknecht brought with him from the mountains of Kurdistan. I have a specimen from Siberia, found near the river Irtysch, and it is now known with certainty that the species grows in the north of India, in Kashmir, and in Nepal.[402] In all these countries it is often near cultivated ground or among rubbish, but often also in rocky ground, clearings, or meadows, as a really wild plant. The cultivated lettuce often spreads from gardens, and sows itself in the open country. No one, as far as I know, has observed it in such a case for several generations, or has tried to cultivate the wild _L. Scariola_, to see whether the transition is easy from the one form to the other. It is possible that the original habitat of the species has been enlarged by the diffusion of cultivated lettuces reverting to the wild form. It is known that there has been a great increase in the number of cultivated varieties in the course of the last two thousand years. Theophrastus indicated three;[403] _le Bon Jardinier_ of 1880 gives forty varieties existing in France.