The white chicories or endives of our gardens are distinguished from _Cichorium Intybus_, in that they are annuals, and less bitter to the taste. Moreover, the hairs of the pappus which crowns the seed are four times longer, and unequal instead of being equal. As long as this plant was compared with _C. Intybus_, it was difficult not to admit two species. The origin of _C. Endivia_ is uncertain. When we received, forty years ago, specimens of an Indian _Cichorium_, which Hamilton named _C. cosmia_, they seemed to us so like the endive that we supposed the latter to have an Indian origin, as has been sometimes suggested;[413] but Anglo-Indian botanists said, and continue to assert, that in India the plant only grows under cultivation.[414] The uncertainty persisted as to the geographical origin. After this, several botanists[415] conceived the idea of comparing the endive with an annual species, wild in the region of the Mediterranean, _Cichorium pumilum_, Jacquin (_C. divaricatum_, Schousboe), and the differences were found to be so slight that some have suspected, and others have affirmed, their specific identity. For my part, after having seen wild specimens from Sicily, and compared the good illustrations published by Reichenbach (_Icones_, vol. xix., pls. 1357, 1358), I am disposed to take the cultivated endives for varieties of the same species as _C. pumilum_. In this case the oldest name being _C. Endivia_, it is the one which ought to be retained, as has been done by Schultz. It resembles, moreover, a popular name common to several languages. The wild plant exists in the whole region, of which the Mediterranean is the centre, from Madeira,[416] Marocco,[417] and Algeria,[418] as far as Palestine,[419] the Caucasus, and Turkestan.[420] It is very common in the islands of the Mediterranean and in Greece. Towards the west, in Spain and Madeira, for instance, it is probable that it has become naturalized from cultivation, judging from the positions it occupies in the fields and by the wayside. No positive proof is found in ancient authors of the use of this plant by the Greeks and Romans;[421] but it is probable that they made use of it and several other _Cichoria_. The common names tell us nothing, since they may have been applied to two different species. These names vary little,[422] and suggest a cultivation of Græco-Roman origin. A Hindu name, _kasni_, and a Tamul one, _koschi_,[423] are mentioned, but no Sanskrit name, and this indicates that the cultivation of this plant was of late origin in the east. +Spinach+—_Spinacia oleracea_, Linnæus.