The antiquity of the existence of the species and its wild nature in Western Asia have become more doubtful since 1855. Anglo-Indian botanists speak of the peach solely as a cultivated tree,[1133] or as cultivated and becoming naturalized and apparently wild in the north-west of India.[1134] Boissier[1135] mentions specimens gathered in Ghilan and to the south of the Caucasus, but he says nothing as to their wild nature; and Karl Koch,[1136] after travelling through this district, says, speaking of the peach, “Country unknown, perhaps Persia. Boissier saw trees growing in the gorges on Mount Hymettus, near Athens.”
The peach spreads easily in the countries in which it is cultivated, so that it is hard to say whether a given tree is of natural origin and anterior to cultivation, or whether it is naturalized. But it certainly was first cultivated in China; it was spoken of there two thousand years before its introduction into the Greco-Roman world, a thousand years perhaps before its introduction into the lands of the Sanskrit-speaking race.
The group of peaches (genus or subgenus) is composed of five forms, which Decaisne[1137] regards as species, but which other botanists are inclined to call varieties. The one is the common peach; the second the nectarine, which we know to be derived; the third is the flattened peach (P. platycarpa, Decaisne) cultivated in China; and the two last are indigenous in China (P. simonii, Decaisne, and P. Davidii, Carrière). It is, therefore, essentially a Chinese group.
It is difficult, from all these facts, not to admit the Chinese origin of the common peach, as I had formerly inferred from more scanty data. Its arrival in Italy at the beginning of the Christian era is now confirmed by the absence of peach stones in the terra-mare or lake-dwellings of Parma and Lombardy, and by the representations of the peach tree in the paintings on the walls of the richer houses in Pompeii.[1138]
I have yet to deal with an opinion formerly expressed by Knight, and supported by several horticulturists, that the peach is a modification of the almond. Darwin[1139] collected facts in support of this idea, not omitting to mention one which seems opposed to it. They may be concisely put as follows:—(1) Crossed fertilization, which presented Knight with somewhat doubtful results; (2) intermediate forms, as to the fleshiness of the fruit and the size of the nut or stone, obtained by sowing peach stones, or by chance in plantations, forms of which the almond-peach is an example which has long been known. Decaisne[1140] pointed out differences between the almond and peach in the size and length of the leaves independently of the fruit. He calls Knight’s theory a “strange hypothesis.”
Geographical botany opposes his hypothesis, for the almond tree has its origin in Western Asia; it was not indigenous in the centre of the Asiatic continent, and its introduction into China as a cultivated species was not anterior to the Christian era. The Chinese, however, had already possessed for thousands of years different varieties of the common peach besides the two wild forms I have just mentioned. The almond and the peach, starting from two such widely separated regions, can hardly be considered as the same species. The one was established in China, the other in Syria and in Anatolia. The peach, after being transported from China into Central Asia, and a little before the Christian era into Western Asia, cannot, therefore, have produced the almond, since the latter existed already in Syria. And if the almond of Western Asia had produced the peach, how could the latter have existed in China at a very remote period while it was not known to the Greeks and Latins?
Pear—Pyrus communis, Linnæus.
The pear grows wild over the whole of temperate Europe and Western Asia, particularly in Anatolia, to the south of the Caucasus and in the north of Persia,[1141] perhaps even in Kashmir,[1142] but this is very doubtful. Some authors hold that its area extends as far as China. This opinion is due to the fact that they regard Pyrus sinensis, Lindley, as belonging to the same species. An examination of the leaves alone, of which the teeth are covered with a fine silky down, convinced me of the specific difference of the two trees.[1143]
Our wild pear does not differ much from some of the cultivated varieties. Its fruit is sour, spotted, and narrowing towards the stalk, or nearly spherical on the same tree.[1144] With many other cultivated species, it is hard to distinguish the individuals of wild origin from those which the chance transport of seeds has produced at a distance from dwellings. In the present case it is not difficult. Pear trees are often found in woods, and they attain to a considerable height, with all the conditions of fertility of an indigenous plant.[1145] Let us examine, however, whether in the wide area they occupy a less ancient existence may be suspected in some countries than in others.
No Sanskrit name for the pear is known, whence it may be concluded that its cultivation is of no long standing in the north-west of India, and that the indication, which is moreover very vague, of wild trees in Kashmir is of no importance. Neither are there any Hebrew or Aramaic names,[1146] but this is explained by the fact that the pear does not flourish in the hot countries in which these tongues were spoken.