After saying that this cherry has been found wild in the forests of Asia Minor, the plains of Macedonia, on Mount Olympus and in neighboring territories, De Candolle, however, limits its habitat to the region "from the Caspian Sea to the environments of Constantinople."[13] But as a wild plant this cherry must have spread over a far greater area. Even the broadest boundaries of the habitat of _Prunus cerasus_ as set by De Candolle show over-caution. Thus, the Marasca cherry, a botanical variety of _Prunus cerasus_, is most certainly wild in the Province of Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea in Austria; so, too, it is certain that this species is feral as far away from De Candolle's center of distribution as northern Austria and southern Germany and has been so for untold ages. It is safe to say that the original source of the Sour Cherry was the territory lying between Switzerland and the Adriatic Sea on the west and the Caspian Sea and probably somewhat farther north on the east. That is, our savage forefathers must have found this cherry in the region thus outlined, probably in a much more extended territory, into which it was brought in more or less remote times by agencies other than human from De Candolle's smaller area of origin. It is easier to define the geographic range of the wild Sweet Cherry. Botanists very generally agree that _Prunus avium_ as a wild plant inhabits all of the mainland of Europe in which the cultivated varieties of the species can be grown--that is, most of the continent south of Sweden, and may be found wild well into southern Russia. The species is reported sparingly wild in northern Africa and is a very common wild plant in southern Asia as far east as northern India. It must not be thought that the plant is everywhere abundant in the great area outlined as its habitat. To the contrary, the Sweet Cherry is an uncommon wild plant in Spain, Italy and other parts of southern Europe. All authorities agree that the region of greatest communal intensity for _Prunus avium_ is between the Caspian and Black Seas and south of these bodies of water. It might suffice to say that from about these seas the Sweet Cherry came--that here grew the trunk from which branches were spread into other lands by birds and animals carrying the seeds from place to place. The most important fact to be established, however, is that this cherry has long grown spontaneously over a widely extended territory and may, therefore, have been domesticated in several widely separated regions. [13] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ 207. 1885. THE CHERRY IN GREECE; THE FIRST RECORD OF CULTURE AND THE NAME