HERBS AND FLOWERS.

To what extent the cultivation of flowers for ornamental purposes was practised by the ancient Hebrews is a question of considerable interest, more easily asked than answered. The evidence is meagre and somewhat conflicting; and space will allow of no more than a brief reference to one or two salient points.

It is certain that the Jews were surrounded by peoples with whom the culture of flowers amounted to a passion. It was so with the Egyptians on the west; it was so with the Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians on the east. At a somewhat later period, it was so with the classical nations. In Egypt, 'so fond' were its inhabitants 'of trees and flowers, and of rearing numerous and rare plants, that they even made them part of the tribute exacted from foreign countries; and such, according to Athenmus, was the care they bestowed on their culture that those flowers, which elsewhere were only sparingly produced, even in their proper season, grew profusely at all times in Egypt¹.' We in our own land have been but following, of late years, the ancient dwellers by the Nile; 'the tables in whose sitting-rooms were always decked with bouquets, and they had even artificial flowers, which received the name of "Egyptian."' The Romans called their festive garlands by the same title.

The testimony of Herodotus and the evidence of the monuments tend to show that the Assyrian races had also learned the love of flowers from their Medo-Persian neighbours and conquerors. Persia is and was the land of flowers, the garden of the East. Moreover, the evidence of floriculture in modern Palestine is equally clear and unquestionable. Speaking of the homesteads of the peasantry, Miss Rogers² says, 'Round them there is a thriving little garden, full of stocks and carnations and other brilliant-coloured and fragrant plants, while the orange and thorny fig, loaded with fruit, create a delightful shade.' Mr. Farley³ writes, 'Here are gardens where the rose, the orange flowers, and the jasmine mingle their perfumes into one delicious odour, almost too powerful for the senses.'

And yet against the probabilities which such facts suggest we have to set the equally remarkable facts that garden flowers are scarcely mentioned in Scripture, that (excluding trees and shrubs on the one hand, and spices and perfumes on the other) not half a dozen flowers, wild or cultivated, are named; and that while we read of gardens of herbs and gardens where fruit trees grow, the only allusions to flowers in gardens are to be found in the Song of Solomon, where 'spices' and 'lilies' are spoken of as shedding fragrance amidst fruit-bearing trees. That monarch was especially likely, of all Hebrew sovereigns, to introduce Egyptian or other foreign customs; and it is probable, from subsequent references to royal gardens (cf. 2 Kings ix. 27; xxi. 18; xxv. 4; and Neh. iii. 15), that his successors maintained the delightful enclosures which that magnificent king had laid out and planted with so much taste and industry (cf. Eccles. ii. 5). The gardens alluded to by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah (cf. Isaiah lxi. 11; Jeremiah xxxi. 12, &c.) may have been private, or like those adjoining modern Syrian towns and villages. The Egyptian custom of wearing garlands at feasts was evidently adopted by the Jews in the moral and political decline of their commonwealth; but even 'the drunkards of Ephraim' do not seem to have reached the depth of effeminacy which prevailed under the Roman emperors, when guests, half-intoxicated with wine and powerful odours, were literally smothered in the flowers on which they reclined. But it is painfully obvious that as the Hebrews came more and more under Gentile influences, the tendency to unbridled indulgence increased (Isaiah xxviii. 1–4; Wisdom ii. 6–9; Judith iii. 7; xv. 13).

On the whole it seems safe to conclude that a few favourite flowers were cultivated, in Bible times, in gardens mainly devoted to plants of more direct utility; but that flower-gardens, such as Europeans delight in, were almost if not entirely unknown. This mingling of the economic and the ornamental was very widely practised in Egypt and the East; and by the Greeks and Romans, as we learn from Homer, Pliny, and the Roman poets. Dr. Daubeny has commented on the singularly small number of garden flowers known to the Greeks and Romans, not withstanding the growth of floriculture and the luxurious delight in flowers which prevailed in Southern Europe. The ornamental plants mentioned by Virgil and by Columella are less than twenty; the shrubs under a dozen; and the medicinal herbs but twenty-five. He rightly points out that most of these cover several species which would not be regarded as distinct; and this of course applies with still greater force to Hebrew names of such plants. Yet, with all deductions, the number is strikingly limited, and it may be well to apply the professor's suggestive remark to Biblical as well as classical plants, that, in the genial climate of Greece and Italy there would be much less temptation to hunt over distant countries for exotic embellishments to their gardens and pleasure grounds, when Nature herself had supplied them so liberally at home⁴.

How 'liberal' that endowment was, travellers in Palestine in the early spring have enthusiastically testified. The meadows are then ablaze with flowers of every hue. Gorgeous ranunculi and anemones, hollyhocks and mallows, cyclamens and convolvuluses, fragrant and thymy blossoms, where the bee loves to hover, ferns and orchids, and a host of liliaceous plants bespangle 'those holy fields' as when they won the notice of the Great Teacher who:—

'. . . moved across the Syrian solitudes
Through a wild wealth of flowers.'

There is not that long continuance of floral beauty with which we are familiar in our more humid climate. Under the beams of an Eastern sun 'the grass withereth and the flower fadeth' as the summer comes on. In the great plain of Gennesareth, for instance, huge thistles, centaureas, and other thorny plants tower above the rank herbage when the summer has advanced; yet the glory of the spring-time can hardly have been unnoticed by the subjects of the royal poet who wrote: 'The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle [dove] is heard in our land' (Song of Solomon. ii. 12)⁵.

The present chapter will be devoted to a brief notice of some herbaceous plants formerly grown in the fields and gardens of the Hebrews, without attempting to recognize the modern distinctions of kitchen-garden and parterre.

Anise (Gk. ἄνηθον).

Mint (Gk. ἡδύοσμον).

Rue (Gk. πήγανον).

'Ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs.'—Luke xi. 42.

'Ye pay tithe of mint and anise.'—Matt. xxiii. 23.

These three familiar herbs have but a limited connection with the sacred writings, the sole references to them being in the Saviour's words above quoted. They represent three different botanical orders; but have this in common, that they are herbaceous, odorous, and economically useful.

The 'anise' of the New Testament is not the plant from which aniseed is derived, but that known as DILL (Anethum graveolens). It belongs to the umbelliferous order, and is not unlike fennel, growing from twelve to twenty inches or more in height, with flat elliptical fruits (popularly called the 'seeds') which contain a volatile oil. Both leaves and fruit are eaten in the East as condiments. The Pharisees made a point of tithing their dill—a practice enjoined in the Talmud; but in their excess of ceremonial zeal, they did the same with mint and rue, concerning which no such command appears to have been issued.

MINT (Mentha), of which three species grow in Palestine, was valued and used for like purposes. It is a labiate plant, and the sweet odour from which it derived its Greek name is too familiar to need further reference. In classical story it was a favourite of Pluto, and in medieval times it was one of the plants sacred to the Virgin Mary.

RUE (Ruta graveolens) is mentioned in the Talmud among herbs which are tithe free. Its scent is too powerful to be agreeable to Western taste, but it was valued by the ancients, like many other strongly-smelling plants. It is a small shrub, of from two to three feet in height, with much-divided leaves and yellow flowers.

All the above herbs were formerly used medicinally as well as for condiments, and still appear in the pharmacopoeia. Mint and dill are carminative, and rue is a stimulant and antispasmodic. In Milton's days,' and long before, rue was deemed strengthening to the eyesight:

'. . . then purged with euphrasie and rue
The visual nerve;'

it was also regarded as valuable against the charms of witchcraft. The rue of Palestine (R. chalepensis) is an allied species.

BRAMBLE (Heb. אָטָד atad, Gk. βάτος).

'Nor of a [the] bramble bush gather they grapes.'—Luke vi. 44.

It has been intimated in a former page that, in the writer's opinion, the task of seeking to identify the numerous Hebrew words denoting thorny and prickly shrubs is a hopeless one; neither the terms themselves nor their Greek or Latin equivalents being capable of satisfactory determina-tion from the botanist's point of view. Doubtless distinctions did sometimes exist in the minds of the writers; but in most cases their meaning appears to have been generic rather than specific. It is so in our own language: we speak of 'thorns' and 'briers' with the vaguest of meanings; yet also of 'the thorn' (i.e. hawthorn) and 'the brier' (i.e. the sweet-brier).

The 'BRAMBLE' is an example of this ambiguity. In Jotham's parable (Judg. ix. 14, 15) a particular plant would at first sight seem to be intended; but we have the word more generally applied in Psalm lviii. 9, 'Before your pots can feel the thorns,' where the use of thorny plants as fuel is alluded to. There is, however, no objection to applying these passages to the shrub which we know as the bramble or blackberry (Rubus), which in Palestine is represented chiefly by R. discolor, a species growing also in our own country. Mr. Atkinson noticed this plant near Shechem (Nablous). Canon Tristram, however, inclines, with some older writers, to render atad by 'buckthorn' (Rhamnus), of which genus the Holy Land yields nearly a dozen species.

In our Lord's time, the word translated 'bramble bush' (Luke vi. 44) was applied to the common black-berry (R. fruticosus), and He probably alluded to the Palestinian variety above mentioned.

COCKLE (Heb. בָּאְשָׁה boshah).

HEMLOCK (Heb. ראׁשׁ rosh).

'Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley: —Job xxxi. 40.

'Judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows.'—Hosea x. 4.

The above passages are examples of common names wrongly converted into proper ones in our Authorized Version, and which the Revisers have partially corrected by a marginal reading. The 'cockle' of Job has nothing to do with the cockle of our cornfields (Lychnis githago):—

'. . .  we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion;'

the word simply means 'worthless,' and is used as an adjective in Isaiah v. 2, where it is rendered 'wild' (i. e. bad), and applied to 'grapes.'

Rosh, translated 'hemlock,' is a still stronger word, and means 'venom' or 'poison,' and not that umbelliferous plant--poisonous though it be—with which the wisest of uninspired teachers was foully slain. In Deut. xxix. 18, it is rendered 'gall.'

(For the 'hemlock' of Amos vi. 12 see WORM-WOOD.)

CORIANDER (Heb. נַּד gad).

CUMMIN (Heb. כַּמּׂן kammon, Gk. κύμινον).

FITCHES (Heb. קֶצַח ketsach).

'It was like coriander seed, white.'—Exod. xvi. 31.

'Doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin?'—Isaiah xxviii. 25.

These three small herbs, though but incidentally mentioned in Scripture, were of some importance in times anterior to the introduction of pepper and similar condiments, more familiar to Western tables; and all had somewhat analogous uses.

CORIANDER (Coriandrum sativum) is alluded to simply by way of comparison with the ' manna' provided for the wandering tribes of Israel in their long pilgrimage; but it is evident, from this circumstance, that it was well known. 'The best is from Egypt,' says Pliny; and thence, no doubt, the Hebrews gained their knowledge of its properties. The Africans are said to have called this herb by a similar name (goid) to the Hebrew term, which Gesenius derives from a verb (נָּדַד gadad), signifying 'to cut,' in allusion to the furrowed appearance of the fruit. It is still much employed in the East as a condiment, and forms an ingredient in curry powder. The fruits are aromatic, and are used in medicine as a carminative. Coriander is an umbelliferous plant, growing from one to two feet in height, with divided leaves and small white flowers.

CUMMIN (Cuminum cyminum) belongs to the same order, and resembles the preceding in general character and properties. As the Greek name is evidently derived from the Hebrew, we may conclude that this, like so many other useful plants, reached Southern Europe from Syria. From the passage in Isaiah above quoted, and the context, we find that it was an article of cultivation among the Jews, as in Egypt. The Ethiopian cummin was esteemed the best, and then the Egyptian. The ancients used it as a condiment with fish and other viands, and as a stimulant to the appetite; and the Egyptian cooks sprinkled the seeds or fruits upon cakes and bread, as ours use carraways.

'The FITCHES,' says the prophet in the passage cited (Isaiah xxviii. 27), 'are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod,'—a light stick only being needed to detach the seeds of the latter. 'Fitches' is obviously an error of our translators, which is corrected in the margin of the Revised Version. We are there told that the herb meant is that miscalled 'black cummin' (Nigella sativa), an annual plant, like the two former, but belonging to the Ranunculus or Buttercup order. Its leaves resemble those of fennel, and its flowers are white or pale blue. The seeds are black, and contained in a capsule; hence a stout 'staff' was required to separate them. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used it to flavour bread and cakes. It is so used in Egypt and Palestine at the present day, as well as for flavouring dishes. The ladies of the former country are said to eat 'black cummin' to promote the admired degree of embonpoint; while Horace's contemporaries, it would seem from his Epistles (lib. i. ep. xix), drank an infusion of the seeds to produce pallor. Six species of Nigella are enumerated in the Syrian flora.

FLAX (LINEN, FINE LINEN), (Heb. בַּד bad, פִּשְׁתֶּה pishteh, סָדִין sadin, שֵׁשׁ shesh; Gk. λίνον, βύσσος).

'The flax and the barley was smitten.'—Exod. ix. 31.

'He arrayed him in ventures of fine linen.'—Gen. xli. 42.

A volume of no slight interest might be written on the FLAX plant (Linum) and its economic history, but the subject does not fall within the scope of the present work. Like hemp, its value has been twofold,—in its fibres and its seeds; but, while the former plant was unknown in Egypt and Western Asia, flax appears among the earliest of fabrics manufactured for human clothing.

It has been satisfactorily proved by microscopic investigation, though for a time the fact was doubted, that the 'fine linen' of ancient Egypt was precisely, as Scripture had affirmed, the spun fibre of flax, and not, as suggested by certain archaeologists, of cotton; though the latter material was both known and wrought in that land of industry, according to Sir G. Wilkinson. 'When we consider,' says Prof. Hehn, 'the length of the linen strips so used [for mummy cloth], the number of the dead—it would have been an abomination to bury a corpse in wool—and the universal use of linen as clothing by the living; when we hear that the only costume of the priests was of pure linen, they being only permitted to wear an upper mantle of woollen when outside the temple; and when we consider the large exportation going on in those days; we are astonished at the quantity of linen which must have been produced in the regions of the Nile.'

Long before the flax crops of Egypt were smitten by the plague of hail, Joseph had been arrayed in the much-prized material, which was worked with such skill and delicacy that specimens exist showing '140 threads to the inch in the warp, and about sixty-four in the woof.'

A fabric in all cases so light, smooth, and cleanly, was specially fitted to be the dress of those who were officially engaged in religious worship. Hence we are not surprised to find that the Jewish priests, like those of Egypt, were commanded to wear linen garments (Exod. xxviii; Ezek. xliv. 17-19), or that the tabernacle curtains were embroidered upon the same material (Exod. xxvi. I). In like manner Samuel and David are represented as 'girded with a linen ephod' (I Sam. ii. 18; 2 Sam. vi. 14).

Angelic beings seen by Ezekiel and Daniel (Ezek. ix. 2; Dan. x. 5) appeared as if 'clothed in linen'; and in the final visions of the Apocalypse, angels and glorified saints are adorned with the same emblematic garments of purity (Rev. xv. 6; xix. 8, 14).

If the Israelites had not brought with them the knowledge of flax, they would have found it in Canaanite looms, as we gather from the story of Rahab of Jericho (Joshua ii. 6). The excellence of the spinning and weaving of Jewish women is hinted at in Proverbs (xxxi. 22-24, R.V.), where the 'wise woman ' is described as making and selling linen girdles, and as wearing robes of the same material. 'Fine linen ' is also among the luxuries for which, in degenerate times, the Hebrew women of fashion are rebuked by the prophet (Isaiah iii. 23). The rich man in the parable was 'clothed in fine linen,' and Joseph of Arimathea bestowed this last honour upon the crucified Saviour before laying the body in 'his own tomb ' (Luke xvi. 19; Mark xv. 46).

Besides curtains and articles of dress, cord and sail-cloth were manufactured of linen; 'white sails' are mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey; and the Tyrians appear to have obtained such from Egypt (Ezek. xxvii. 7), and other 'fine linen' from 'Syria' (ver. 16). It was also used in Palestine for lamp-wicks (Isaiah xlii. 3).

The general aspect of the humble flower whence this fibre, rightly named by Linnæus 'most useful' (usitatissimum), is familiar to most persons, growing wild as it does on chalky soils, beside being cultivated in some parts of both England and Ireland. Mr. Smith, in his Bible Plants, thus succinctly describes the species in question, which is common to Palestine, North-ern Africa, and Europe :—'It is a slender, wiry-stemmed annual, attaining the height of about 3 feet; having small, simple, alternate leaves, and terminated by several pretty blue flowers succeeded by five-celled capsules about the size of a pea. These capsules are called “bolls," and the expression, “the flax was boiled" (Exod. ix. 31), means that it had arrived at a state of maturity. When the bolls are ripe the flax is pulled, and tied in bundles; and in order to assist the separation of the fibre from the stalks, the bundles are placed in water for several weeks, and then spread out to dry.' (See Joshua ii. 6.)

The seeds of the flax ('linseed') are largely imported into this country, together with the fibre, from Egypt, Russia, India, and the United States. The abundance of olive oil in Palestine probably rendered the Hebrews indifferent to this application of the plant; but the Egyptians extracted oil from flax as well as from many other herbs unknown to, or unnoticed by, their less enterprising neighbours.

Hyssop (Heb. אֵזוֹב ezob, Gk. ὕσσωπος).

'Ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood.'—Exod. xii. 22.

'They filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop.'—John xix. 29.

If Lyonnet and Strauss-Durckheim could each devote years to the study of the anatomy of a despised insect, Biblical expositors have endeavoured to imitate those eminent naturalists in the time, thought, and learning which they have expended on one, and that proverbially the humblest, of Scripture plants. The cedar of Lebanon has not awakened a tithe of the discussion which philologists and Eastern travellers have maintained around 'the HYSSOP that springeth out of the wall.' Celsius, for example, after devoting some forty pages to the examination of the claims of half as many botanical candidates, leaves the question as unsettled as at first. In a small handbook like the present we shall hardly be expected to traverse the debateable ground or to pronounce an ex cathedrâ verdict.

The word 'hyssop ' was adopted by the Greeks directly from the Hebrews, and it has been naturalized in our own language with but slight alteration. It is applied to a genus of labiate plants, of which the common species (Hyssops officinalis) grows in this country as a garden plant. It occurs in Palestine, but is not conspicuous among the numerous Labiatae⁶ of the Syrian hillsides, where mint and thyme, rosemary and lavender, savoury and marjoram, secrete honey and diffuse their healthful fragrance in the bright spring-time. Among these tradition identifies the hyssop of Scripture with the familiar herb, MARJORAM (Origanum), of which six species are found in the Holy Land. The common kind, so well known in cottage gardens (O. vulgare), grows only in the north, but an allied species (O. maru) abounds throughout the central hills, and a variety is common in the southern desert. Tradition may therefore be said in this case to accord with the requirements both of Scripture and geography.

It appears first as a plant sufficiently common in Egypt to be used by all the Israelite families in the observance of the Passover; afterwards it is directed to be used in the ceremonial purification of leprosy and in the sacrifice of the red heifer (Exod. xii. 22; Lev. xiv. 4; Numb. xix. 6). It was deemed the type of a humble plant, and grew in the crevices of walls (1 Kings iv. 33). Whether it possessed cleansing properties of its own is not determined by Psalm li. 7, as the reference may be to the Passover. Its stem seems to have been large and strong enough to support a sponge filled with liquid (cf. Matt. xxvii. 48; John xix. 29).

Mr. Carruthers, in the Bible Educator, argues that the marjoram fulfils all the needful conditions. Several species of marjoram are common in Palestine, and are found in Egypt and the Sinaitic Peninsula. The straight herbaceous stems and rough hairy leaves would well adapt it for making into a bundle and using as a sprinkler. This eminent botanist also considers that the hyssop used at the crucifixion was placed 'on a reed,' i.e. a plant stem distinct from that of the marjoram (cf. Matt. xxvii. 29; Mark xv. 36). This is in accordance with the views of Rosenmuller, who urges that the aromatic scent of the herb, which would tend to refresh the agonized Saviour, was the reason for its employment by the Roman soldiers.

Dr. J. F. Royle, on the other hand, contended that the Caper plant (Capparis spinosa) best represented the 'hyssop' of Scripture. It grows in the Jordan valley, Egypt, and the Desert, in the gorges of Lebanon, and in the Kedron valley; and it 'springs out of the walls' of the old Temple area. The Arabs call it azuf.

This view has been adopted by Dean Stanley, Canon Tristram, and other modern writers. But the caper is not generally distributed in Palestine, and its crooked, woody, and prickly stem would render it quite unfit for sprinkling purposes. Except from the similarity between the Hebrew and Arabic names, the balance of probability seems to favour the older view, that the marjoram, or some closely allied labiate herb, was the hyssop of the Old and New Testament.

Readers of the Revised Version will have noticed a remarkable rendering of Eccles. xii. 5, in which, while the Authorized Version has 'desire shall fail,' the newer translation reads 'the caper-berry shall fail.' This rendering, however, is no novelty, the oldest Greek and Latin MSS. and the Syriac version interpreting in the same manner. The meaning appears to be, either that condiments like the fruit of the caper (eaten in the East as with us) fail to stimulate the waning appetite of the aged man; or that he, like an overripe caper-berry, is ready to fall to the earth. It should be noted that the Hebrew word thus translated is אֲבִיוֹנָה (abiyonah), and bears no relation to ezob or hyssop.

LILY (Heb. שׁוֹשָׁן shoshan, Gk. κρίνον).

Rose (Heb. חֲבַצֶלֶת chabatseleth).

'Consider the lilies, how they grow.'—Matt. vi. 28.

'The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.'—Isaiah xxxv. I.

Remembering the extent to which these two queens of the floral world, the LILY and the Rose, have figured in ancient and modern literature, and the varied strains in which poets have sung their praises; remembering that the Holy Land lay between Persia, the garden of roses, on the one side, and the lands of classic song on the other; and remembering also that both in Egypt and Palestine, according to the testimony of modern travellers, the manufacture of rose-water is a recognized occupation,—it certainly is not without surprise and hesitation that one is led to conclude that neither the rose nor the lily (as we understand those terms) is mentioned in either the Old or New Testament, and moreover that neither of the words so translated in our English Bible can be identified with certainty. Yet such is the verdict of the best authorities, both Jewish and Christian.

Turning first to the botanical evidence, we find that while several species of rose are indigenous to Palestine, they are found chiefly in the Lebanon range, and do not form a prominent or characteristic feature of the vegetation. We must look further north for 'Syria's land of roses,' as sung by Thomas Moore. As to liliaceous plants, enough has already been stated to indicate their richness and variety in Israel's land during the brief season of spring. Yet there are, apparently, but two species of Lilium native to the country, the white lily (L. candidum) and the scarlet martagon (L. Chalcedonicum), both of which are rare.

The evidence of language—often so valuable in indicating the course of plant migration where history fails us—tends in the same direction. The word translated 'rose' occurs but twice in the Bible, viz. in the passage quoted at the head of this section, and in the Song of Solomon (ii. 1), 'I am the rose of Sharon.' Gesenius and other eminent philologists derive the name from a root (בֶּצֶל  betsel) denoting a 'bulb.' If this be accepted, the Scripture 'rose' is at once removed into totally different botanical associations, and must be sought for among the lily-like flowers of the field.

That this was the view taken by the Alexandrian translators of the Old Testament, we infer from their version of Isaiah xxxv. I, which in the Septuagint reads, 'the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a lily (κρίνον).' In the other passage they seem doubtful as to the plant intended, and instead of ' I am the rose of Sharon,' they paraphrase it, 'I am a flower of the plain⁷, and a lily of the valleys;' the same word being made to do duty for the 'rose' in the one passage and the 'lily' in the other.

Our Revised Version, following the Syriac, adopts the autumnal crocus as the Biblical 'rose,' and gives a marginal note to that effect. But, with all deference to so ancient an authority, the Colchicum autumnale has little to recommend it to so honoured a position. It is pale and scentless, and inferior in form and beauty to a score of other flowers of kindred affinities.

A much more probable interpretation is that of the Chaldee and Arabic translators, who give the narcissus, narkus or narkom, as the equivalent of the Hebrew chabatseleth. According to the late Dr. Royle the French daffodil or polyanthus narcissus (N. tazetta) is considered in the East to be the same as the narkum. This species, which curiously enough was called by the old Greeks βολβὸς ἐμετικόςν, 'emetic bulb,' is the only true narcissus indigenous to Palestine; but there are amaryllises and other members of the same family, and there seems no reasonable ground for restricting the original word to one small species⁸, albeit this has been noticed as abounding in the plain of Sharon.

The narcissus was a special favourite with the Greek poets; one of whom, Sophocles, sings, 'And, day by day, the narcissus with its beauteous clusters, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, bursts into bloom by heaven's dew.' Ovid relates the well-known fable of the vain

though beautiful youth; and Virgil sings of the 'purple' and the 'late-flowering narcissus⁹.'

Dr. Thomson, finding that the Arabic name for the mallow is khubbazy, inclines to the belief that this flower, common in Palestine as with ourselves, may re-present the Scripture 'rose.' Miss Rogers also mentions a village called Khubeizeh, 'from the abundance of mallows growing there.' The verbal resemblance is certainly singular, but the mallow is not a 'bulbous' plant¹⁰.

Turning now to the 'lily' we are constrained to fall in with the principle laid down by Dr. Daubeny, in respect to Latin and Greek authors, that plant-names are to be taken as representing genera, and not particular species. Indeed, we must often, as we have already seen, go beyond this, and include whole families in one popular term, so that 'lily' is no longer the lilium of botanical classification, but includes such forms as tulip, iris, gladiolus, hyacinth, fritillary, and perhaps orchis and squill. And it is the writer's conviction, that both the spirit of the Saviour's teaching and the actual probabilities of the case are best met by considering that when He bade His disciples 'consider the lilies' it was to the whole assemblage of vernal flowers—chiefly liliaceous in type—which bloomed around them, that He directed attention, and not to any special kind, whether genus or species. 'Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,' in their mingled tints of scarlet and purple, crimson and gold.

A like general interpretation seems best to suit the bearing of such references as the name of the Persian city 'Shushan the palace' (Neh. i. 1; Esther i. 2), the Hebrew feminine name 'Susannah,' and the titles prefixed to Psalms xlv. and 1x.—Shoshannim, 'lilies,' and Shushan-eduth, 'lily of testimony.'

The flowers which formed part of the Golden Candle-stick of the Jewish tabernacle, and which both the Septuagint Version and Josephus call 'lilies' (Kplva), were merely conventional forms—probably the Egyptian sacred lotus. So also we may conclude was the lily work of Solomon's temple (Exod. xxv. 31, &c.; 1 Kings vii. 19, &c.)

There remain only the references to lilies in the Canticles and the prophecy of Hosea. In the former there is mention of gathering lilies' and 'feeding among lilies.' Here also the meaning seems unrestricted to a particular kind of flower, since we cannot imagine one kind of lily or liliaceous plant to have occupied the garden' to the exclusion of others equally fragrant or beautiful. (See chs. ii–vii.)

Hosea (xiv. 5) promises that Israel 'shall grow as the lily,' and, judging from the context, a particular type of lily, though not necessarily an individual species, would seem to be intended.

More definite still is the allusion in Song of Solomon ii. 1, 2: 'I am the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love,' &c. If in these instances we are led to select one liliaceous genus from the rich variety with which Palestine is and was endowed, the genus IRIS appears to us to have pre-eminent claims. Large, vigorous, elegant in form and gorgeous in colouring, no fitter emblem could be found, from an Oriental standpoint, in which to convey the sentiment of admiration and love.

The conclusions to which we have been led may therefore be thus briefly summarized:—that the 'rose' of the Old Testament, if a bulbous plant, as philologists contend, was represented by the narcissus and allied forms (amaryllis, &c.). If not bulbous, the poppy or garden anemone appears a highly probable claimant. As to the 'lily,' the Kplva of the New Testament and in most instances the shoshannim of the Old, denote liliaceous plants in general; the other references being either to architectural forms, or indicating the Iris or Flag, in its lovely and conspicuous varieties.

Both roses and lilies are several times mentioned in the Apocrypha. The 'lilies' offer no special interpretation distinct from that above suggested; but the 'roses' of 2 Esdras ii. 19, and the 'rose-buds' of Wisdom ii. 8, were probably what we understand by those words. The 'rose by the brook' of Ecclus. xxxix. 13, and the 'rose-plant in Jericho' of the same book (ch. xxiv. 14), are most likely the oleander.

It would appear that the cultivation of the rose had by this time become known to the Jews, and there are numerous references to 'gardens' and 'flowers' in these later books, with other evidence of the influence of Gentile customs.

The stream of Semitic civilization, to which Europe owes so much, as it moved westward, divided, according to Professor Hehn, into two branches, a northern and a southern—an Armenian and a Syrian; and it was by the northern route, viâ Asia Minor, that the rose and the lily passed from Persia into Italy. Thus we may explain the absence of the true Rosa and Lilium from the Flora of Palestine.

MALLOWS (Heb. מַלּוּחַ malluach).

'Who cut up mallows by the bushes.'—Job xxx. 4.

The suggestion that the mallow is the 'rose' of the Old Testament has been referred to in a preceding page, but the 'mallows' which the homeless and famine-stricken are described by Job as gathering to satisfy their hunger, bear no relation to the malvaceous type of plant. The word so rendered is derived from melach, 'salt,' and our Revisers have rightly translated the passage, 'They pluck SALTWORT by the bushes.' The Atriplex halimus and other saline plants, called goose-foots and oraches, are eaten by the poor in Palestine, just as similar herbs are used as food in our own country. In each a number of different species are found; and A. hortensis, the garden orache, is often cultivated as a sort of spinach. The ashes yield the 'soap' of Scripture.

MANDRAKES (Heb. דּוּדָאִים dudaim).

'The mandrakes give a smell.'—Song of Solomon vii. 13.

The slight references to this plant in the Old Testament, in the above passage, and in Gen. xxx. 14-16, where it is said to have been gathered by Jacob's eldest son in the Syrian or Mesopotamian fields, ' in the days of wheat harvest,' would warrant an equally brief notice here, but for the mass of superstitious folly and falsehood which has accumulated around the MANDRAKE of Oriental and classical story. Commentators are by no means unanimous in the above rendering, a dozen other fruits and flowers having been suggested; but the majority agree with the Septuagint in understanding the Scripture mandrake to be the Mandragora officinarum, a near relative of the nightshades, the 'Apple of Sodom,' and the potato plant. It is found throughout the valleys and plains of Palestine, both west and east of the Jordan, and is still reputed by the Arabs to possess the medicinal virtues possibly hinted at in the story of Reuben. This weird herb is thus described by Mariti:—' At the village of St. John in the mountains, about six miles south-west from Jerusalem, this plant is found at present, as well as in Tuscany. It grows low, like lettuce, to which its leaves bear a strong resemblance, except that they have a dark green colour. The flowers are purple, and the root is for the most part parted. The fruit, when ripe, in the beginning of May, is of the size and colour of a small apple, exceedingly ruddy, and of a most agreeable odour; our guide thought us fools for suspecting it to be unwholesome. He ate it freely himself, and it is gene-rally valued by the inhabitants as exhilarating their spirits.'

It is, perhaps, the curiously forked shape of the root which first drew attention to the plant; as a little exercise of imagination could easily discover in it a caricature of the human form. 'As mandrakes,' says an old English writer, 'whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the form of the face at the top of the root, and leave those strings [rootlets] to make a broad beard down to the feet.' Fables would soon multiply on such a foundation; hence the ridiculous superstition adopted by Josephus that it could only be uprooted with safety by such expedients as attaching a dog to the stem, the animal dying in convulsions as soon as the plant had been detached from the soil. The physician Dioscorides held this view, as shown in a singular drawing copied by Dr. Daubeny in his Roman Husbandry. Josephus also says that the mandrake, which he calls Baaras, has but one virtue, that of expelling' demons from sick persons. It was also supposed to utter shrieks when disturbed, and to behave in other respects like a sensitive being. These notions and many others were brought into Europe, and have had their influence even in our own country until comparatively recent times:

'And shrieks like mandrakes, torn out of the earth,
That living mortals hearing them run mad.'

The plant, which is found wild in Southern Europe, has, like most of its order, poisonous properties, being both violently purgative and narcotic:

' . . . . not poppy nor mandragora
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Can ever med'cine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.'

Professor Bentley remarks that it was used by the ancients as an ansthetic. The Arabs call it 'Satan's apple.'

MUSTARD (Gk. σίναπι)

'The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed.'—Matt. xiii. 31.

This familiar plant, though as common in Palestine as in our own country, is mentioned only in the New Testament, in three or four passages, all occurring in our Saviour's discourses. In St. Matthew's gospel, and in the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, it is made the subject of one of the parables of the kingdom. In two other passages (Matt. xvii. 20, and Luke xvii. 6) the seed is again referred to in the inspiring words, 'If ye have faith as a grain of MUSTARD SEED, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove.'

Somewhat unnecessary objections have been raised to the statement in the above parable that the mustard becomes 'the greatest among herbs,' while its seed is 'the least of all seeds;' and that the plant becomes 'a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.' And attempts have been made to discover some other Syrian plant, which possessed a more minute seed and yet attained larger proportions.

Apart, however, from the fact that the Greek word is free from all ambiguity, it appears sufficient to notice that our Lord was speaking, not in botanical but in agricultural language; and in this respect the mustard seed appears to be the smallest of those which the Jews were accustomed to sow in their fields. As to the size attained by the herb, the reader does not need to be reminded of the remarkable vegetative power of the Brassicae or cabbage family, to which the mustard belongs. Dr. Thomson says: ' I once discovered a veritable cabbage tree on the cliffs of the Dog River;' but examples may be found in our own Channel Islands.

The same observer records of the wild mustard: 'I have seen this plant on the rich plains of Akka [Phoenicia] as tall as the horse and his rider.' Plants of much lower stature would afford 'shelter' to 'the birds of the air;' the Great Teacher does not say that they built their nests in any such spots. There are traditions in Palestine of mustard trees into which a man could climb, and Lord Claude Hamilton saw specimens in Upper Egypt' 'higher than he could reach, and with a stem as thick as a man's arm.' Several species occur in Palestine and Egypt; and the mustard grown in the latter country was deemed specially excellent. It is but little cultivated, according to Dr. Kitto, by the peasantry of modern Syria, except for the use of the Frank residents.

NETTLE (Heb. חָרוּל charul).

'As Gomorrah, even the breeding (R.V. a possession) of nettles and salt pits.'—Zeph. ii. 9.

The remarkable order (Urticaceae), which yields the above familiar but unpopular plant, includes not a few of high value to man. Of these, however, none were utilized by the Hebrews except the fig, and subsequently the mulberry. The Hemp and the Hop are not mentioned, and the NETTLE is only regarded as a noxious weed, deriving its name from a verb meaning 'to burn,' just as our own forefathers called it, according to our etymology, netel or nædl, a needle. Professor Hehn, however, considers the derivation to be from nähen, to sew, pointing back to the primitive age when in Europe nettle yarn and cloth were made by the women, as is still done in some parts of Western Asia. This was the case in Scotland until the last century, and both there and in England the leaves were eaten as a pot-herb, and infused in water as a domestic medicine.

In Scripture the nettle is associated with thorns and brambles, as an inhabitant of waste and neglected spots. The outcasts of Job's days 'were gathered together under nettles' (ch. xxx. 7), and such weeds grow to a height of six feet in the warm Jordan valley. Moab was to be like ' Gomorrah, a possession of nettles,' such as grow near the Dead Sea. Solomon noticed the garden of the slothful, 'it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof' (Prov. xxiv. 31).

The word here translated (rightly, it would seem) 'thorns,' as distinct from 'nettles,' is rendered 'nettles' in Isaiah xxxiv. 13 and Hosea ix. 6. The Revisers alter the first of these into 'thorns,' but leave the latter as in the older version. Four species of nettle occur in Palestine, including the Small, the Roman, and the Common stinging nettle of our own islands.

THISTLE (Heb. חוֹחֵ choach, דַּרְדַּר dardar; Gk. τρίβολος).

'Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?'—Matt. vii. 16.

In the present neglected state of the once well-cultivated land of Israel, thistles and knapweeds are as extensively represented as the various kinds of 'thorn' and ' brier: They abound in all forms and colours in the inland plains and valleys, and overgrow the maritime level of Sharon. Lord Lindsay, riding across this fertile tract, saw 'thistles of the deepest hue and most luxuriant growth,' often overtopping his head as he rode. Amidst so many genera and species of these prickly and sometimes formidable flowers, it seems impossible to single out any special type as indicated in Old or New Testament references—the more so, as we do not know which of the existing forms were then re-strained or suppressed by human industry, in places where now they are too conspicuous to be overlooked.

Thistle-like plants appear to be expressly mentioned, each time in association with 'thorns,' in the following: 'Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee' (Gen. iii. 18); 'the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars' (Hosea x. 8); 'that which beareth briers and thorns is rejected' (Heb. vi. 8); also in the passage above quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. The Greek word τρίβολος¹¹ (meaning a triple point) was applied to three kinds of plants at least, one being aquatic and an-other the Centaurea calcitrapa, or 'caltrops' of our cornfields—a Palestinian weed; but the meaning in the New Testament seems more general. The other word, (choach), rendered 'thistle' in the A. V., occurs in Job xxxi. 40, 'Let thistles grow instead of wheat;' and in the parable of Jehoash, 'The thistle that was in Lebanon' (2 Kings xiv. 9; 2 Chron. xxv. 18); but in these cases the reference appears to be to some other spinous kind of plant. It may, however, denote one or more of the specially formidable Centaureas, such as Canon Tristram met with in Galilee, and through which it was impossible to make a way until the plants had been beaten down.

WORMWOOD (Heb. לַעֲנָה laanah, Gk. ἅψινθος).

'Behold, I will feed them with wormwood.'—Jer. xxiii. 15.

The plant familiarly known as WORMWOOD, from one of its medicinal applications, is the Artemisia absinthium of botanists. It belongs to the great Composite family (Compositae), which includes our daisies and dandelions, camomiles, chrysanthemums, and thistles; and the genus Artemisia comprises many species remarkable for their intense bitterness. It is this property which gives significance to the passages of Scripture in which 'worm-wood' is mentioned, and which are all of a figurative character. The 'Survey' enumerates seven species found chiefly on the sandy coast, or in other bare localities. A. arborescens is found on Mount Carmel, and A. judaica in the Southern Desert.

'Wormwood and gall' are in Scripture the types of bitterness—the bitterness of affliction, remorse, and punitive suffering. The Israelites were warned by Moses against secret idolatry, as 'a root that beareth gall and wormwood' (Deut. xxix. 78). In like terms Solomon warns the young man against licentious indulgence (Prov. v. 4). The prophet Jeremiah (ix. 15) is commissioned to say, 'Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood;' and this is repeated in a subsequent chapter (xxiii. 15). The same prophet bewails the fulfilment of these predictions in the desolation which followed the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians: ' He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood;' 'mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall' (Lam. iii. 15, 19).

The mystic 'Star' of apocalyptic vision, which was called 'Wormwood,' is described as falling into the waters of the earth: 'and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter' (Rev. viii. i i). In Amos vi. 12 it is said, 'ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock,' where the latter word should be 'wormwood,' as in other places. The modern church is familiar with the same idea through one of its most popular hymns:

'Sinners whose love can ne'er forget
The wormwood and the gall,
Go, spread your trophies at His feet,
And crown Him Lord of all.'

The Greeks called this plant ἄψινθος or ἀψινθιον, the undrinkable,' and distinguished several species by appropriate epithets; but they and the Romans used more than one kind in medicine, and A. absinthium is still included in our own materia medica as a tonic and aromatic. The absinthe drunk in France is prepared from two species; a third, familiarly called 'southern‑wood' or 'old man,' is much cultivated in cottage gardens for its agreeable odour.

1) Wilkinson.

2) Domestic Life in Palestine.

3) Two Years in Syria.

4) See Daubeny's Roman Husbandry, Lect. VII.

5) For a judicious selection of flowers of Northern Palestine, the reader is recommended to consult a beautiful little volume of coloured drawings by Mrs. Zeller, of Nazareth, entitled Wild Flowers of the Holy Land (Nisbet).

6) Probably not under two hundred species.

7) Sharon means 'level ground.'

8) The Italians call this narcissus tazetta, or little cup,' and the Chinese cultivate it for their new year's festivals.

9) Ovid, Met. lib. iii. Fab. vi; Virgil, Eclog. v. 38; Georg. iv. 122.

10) If the 'bulb' theory did not present so serious an objection, we might find in the garden or poppy anemone (A. coronaria) a much more probable representative of the Biblical rose. Of this Canon Tristram writes: 'The most gorgeously painted, the most conspicuous, and the most universally spread of all the floral treasures of the Holy Land.' Mrs. Zeller figures several varieties of this beautiful flower, and it seems strange that it should have found no mention in sacred story. Dr. Tristram believes it to he the lily of the field' pointed to by our Lord; but with all deference to so justly esteemed an authority, we cannot think that the Great Teacher would have passed over all those plants ordinarily included in the word κρίνον, and applied it to a flower so far removed from the liliaceous type.

11) So Virgil, 'Lappae tribulique,' Georg. lib. i. 153