Note 30 — Chapter I · THE KING OF THE WOOD

See V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere in ihrem übergang aus Asien⁷ (Berlin, 1902), pp. 520 sq.: “In the course of history the flora of the Italian peninsula assumed more and more a southern character. When the first Greeks landed in lower Italy the forests consisted predominantly of deciduous trees, the beeches reached lower down than now, when they are confined to the highest mountain regions. Centuries later in the landscapes on the walls of Pompeii we see nothing but evergreen trees, the Laurus nobilis, the olive, the cypress, the oleander; in the latest times of the empire and in the Middle Ages the lemon-trees and orange-trees appear, and since the discovery of America the magnolias, the agaves, and the Indian figs. There can be no question that this revolution has been wrought mainly by the hand of man.”