Nearly all the floras of the south of Europe and of Algeria give the plant as cultivated and half-wild, rarely and only in a few localities as truly wild. It is easy to understand the difficulty of recognizing the wild character of a species often mixed with cereals, and which persists and spreads itself after cultivation. Heldreich does not allow that it is indigenous in Greece.[520] This is a strong presumption that in the rest of Europe and in Algeria the plant has escaped from cultivation.
It is probable that this was not the case in Western Asia; for authors cite sufficiently wild localities, where agriculture plays a less considerable part than in Europe. Ledebour,[521] for instance, mentions specimens gathered in the desert, near the Caspian Sea, and in the province of Lenkoran. Meyer[522] confirms the assertion with respect to Lenkoran. Baker, in his flora of British India, after indicating the species as scattered here and there in the northern provinces, adds, “often cultivated,” whence it may be inferred that he considers it as indigenous, at least in the north. Boissier asserts nothing with regard to the localities in Persia which he mentions in his Oriental flora.[523]
To sum up, I think it probable that the species was indigenous before cultivation in the region extending from the south of the Caucasus, or of the Caspian Sea, to the north of India, and that it spread towards Europe in the track of ancient cultivation, mixed perhaps with cereals.
+Ochrus+—_Pisum ochrus_, Linnæus; _Lathyrus ochrus_, de Candolle.
Cultivated as an annual fodder in Catalonia, under the name of _tapisots_,[524] and in Greece, particularly in the island of Crete, under that of _ochros_,[525] mentioned by Theophrastus,[526] but without a word of description. Latin authors do not speak of it, which argues a rare and local cultivation in ancient times.
The species is certainly wild in Tuscany.[527] It appears to be wild also in Greece and Sardinia, where it is found in hedges,[528] and in Spain, where it grows in uncultivated ground;[529] but as for the south of France, Algeria, and Sicily, authors are either silent as to the locality, or mention only fields and cultivated ground. The plant is unknown further east than Syria,[530] where probably it is not wild.