General botanical works indicate _Ervum Ervilia_ as growing in Southern Europe, but if we take severally the best floras, it will be seen that it is in such localities as fields, vineyards, or cultivated ground. It is the same in Western Asia, where Boissier[496] speaks of specimens from Syria, Persia, and Afghanistan. Sometimes, in abridged catalogues,[497] the locality is not given, but nowhere do I find it asserted that the plant has been seen wild in places far from cultivation. The specimens in my own herbarium furnish no further proof on this head. In all likelihood the species was formerly wild in Greece, Italy, and perhaps Spain and Algeria, but the frequency of its cultivation in the very regions where it existed prevent us from now finding the wild stocks. +Tare+, or +Common Vetch+—_Vicia sativa_, Linnæus. _Vicia sativa_ is an annual leguminous plant wild throughout Europe, except in Lapland. It is also common in Algeria,[498] and to the south of the Caucasus as far as the province of Talysch.[499] Roxburgh pronounces it to be wild in the north-west provinces and in Bengal, but Sir Joseph Hooker admits this only as far as the variety called _angustifolia_[500] is concerned. No Sanskrit name is known, and in the modern languages of India only Hindu names.[501] Targioni believes it to be the _ketsach_ of the Hebrews.[502] I have received specimens from the Cape and from California. The species is certainly not indigenous in the two last-named regions, but has escaped from cultivation. The Romans sowed this plant both for the sake of the seed and as fodder as early as the time of Cato.[503] I have discovered no proof of a more ancient cultivation. The name _vik_, whence _vicia_, dates from a very remote epoch in Europe, for it exists in Albanian,[504] which is believed to be the language of the Pelasgians, and among the Slav, Swedish, and Germanic nations, with slight modifications. This does not prove that the species was cultivated. It is distinct enough and useful enough to herbivorous animals to have received common names from the earliest times. +Flat-podded Pea+—_Lathyrus Cicera_, Linnæus. An annual leguminous plant, esteemed as fodder, but whose seed, if used as food in any quantity, becomes dangerous.[505] It is grown in Italy under the name of _mochi_.[506] Some authors suspect that it is the _cicera_ of Columella and the _ervilia_ of Varro,[507] but the common Italian name is very different to these. The species is not cultivated in Greece.[508] It is more or less grown in France and Spain, without anything to show that its use dates from ancient times. However, Wittmack[509] attributes to it, but doubtfully, some seeds brought by Virchow from the Trojan excavations.