The common names in ancient languages have been the subject of a learned article by Adolphe Pictet,[1019] but nothing relative to the origin of the species can be deduced from them; and besides, the different species and varieties have often been confused in popular nomenclature. It is far more important to know whether archæology can tell us anything about the presence of the bird-cherry in Europe in prehistoric times.
Heer gives an illustration of the stones of Prunus avium, in his paper on the lake-dwellings of Western Switzerland.[1020] From what he was kind enough to write to me, April 14, 1881, these stones were found in the peat formed above the ancient deposits of the age of stone. De Mortillet[1021] found similar cherry-stones in the lake-dwellings of Bourget belonging to an epoch not very remote, more recent than the stone age. Dr. Gross sent me some from the locality, also comparatively recent, of Corcelette on Lake Neuchâtel, and Strobel and Pigorini discovered some in the “terramare” of Parma.[1022] All these are settlements posterior to the stone age, and perhaps belonging to historic time. If no more ancient stones of this species are found in Europe, it will seem probable that naturalization took place after the Aryan migrations.
Sour Cherry—Prunus cerasus, Linnæus; Cerasus vulgaris, Miller; Baumweichsel, Sauerkirschen, in German.
The Montmorency and griotte cherries, and several other kinds known to horticulturists, are derived from this species.[1023]
Hohenacker[1024] saw Prunus cerasus at Lenkoran, near the Caspian Sea, and Koch[1025] in the forests of Asia Minor, that is to say, in the north-east of that country, as that was the region in which he travelled. Ancient authors found it at Elisabethpol and Erivan, according to Ledebour.[1026] Grisebach[1027] indicates it on Mount Olympus of Bithynia, and adds that it is nearly wild on the plains of Macedonia. The true and really ancient habitation seems to extend from the Caspian Sea to the environs of Constantinople; but in this very region Prunus avium is more common. Indeed, Boissier and Tchihatcheff do not appear to have seen P. cerasus even in the Pontus, though they received or brought back several specimens of P. avium.[1028]
In the north of India, P. cerasus exists only as a cultivated plant.[1029] The Chinese do not appear to have been acquainted with our two kinds of cherry. Hence it may be assumed that it was not very early introduced into India, and the absence of a Sanskrit name confirms this. We have seen that, according to Grisebach, P. cerasus is nearly wild in Macedonia. It was said to be wild in the Crimea, but Steven[1030] only saw it cultivated; and Rehmann[1031] gives only the allied species, P. chamæcerasus, Jacquin, as wild in the south of Russia. I very much doubt its wild character in any locality north of the Caucasus. Even in Greece, where Fraas said he saw this tree wild, Heldreich only knows it as a cultivated species.[1032] In Dalmatia,[1033] a particular variety or allied species, P. Marasca, is found really wild; it is used in making Maraschino wine. P. cerasus is wild in mountainous parts of Italy[1034] and in the centre of France,[1035] but farther to the west and north, and in Spain, the species is only found cultivated, and naturalized here and there as a bush. P. cerasus, more than the bird-cherry, evidently presents itself in Europe, as a foreign tree not completely naturalized.
None of the often-quoted passages[1036] in Theophrastus, Pliny, and other ancient authors appear to apply to P. cerasus.[1037] The most important, that of Theophrastus, belongs to Prunus avium, because of the height of the tree, a character which distinguishes it from P. cerasus. Kerasos being the name for the bird-cherry in Theophrastus, as now kerasaia among the modern Greeks, I notice a linguistic proof of the antiquity of P. cerasus. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, call the latter vyssine, an ancient name which reappears in the German Wechsel, and the Italian visciolo.[1038] As the Albanians have also the name kerasie for P. avium, it is probable that their ancestors very clearly distinguished the two species by different names, perhaps before the arrival of the Hellenes in Greece.
Another indication of antiquity may be seen in Virgil (Geor. ii. 17)—
“Pullulat ab radice aliis densissima silva
Ut cerasis ulmisque”—