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Scripture Natural History CONVERTED 33D»^at]&s of ^ible mnotoletrge. X. SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. I. THE TREES AND PLANTS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE. BY WILLIAM H. GROSER, B.Sc. (Lond.) Ata/ior of 'Joshua and his Successors,' efc THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 56 Paternoster Row, and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard. 1888. — « • ; ^s &1 'Syria is well worthy to be the home of civilization, possessing as she does lands fertile even under complete abandonment; fields producing spontaneously cereals for food and silks and cottons for clothing ; timber of every description, and of the best quality, from the cedar to the oak, from the plane to the pine, and which may be had for the felling while sycomores of enormous size spread their branches wide enough to cover a whole caravan with their grateful shade. Whatever in the vegetable kingdom is useful or beautiful is here found in the natural unforced produce of the soil, spread out in rich and prodigal abundance.' Farley, Two Years in Syria. \) OTTN/S-^^ <J/ • '« • t ^ J • « CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Sketch of the Vegetation of Palestine and the neighbouring countries .... CHAPTER n. Timber and Forest Trees and Shrubs Algum (or Almug) Trees I vi CONTENTS. PAGE Poplar 75 Shittah Tree, Shittim Wood 76 Thyine Wood 78 Willow 79 CHAPTER III. Fruit Trees and Shrubs 82 Almond 87 Apple 89 Date Palm 93 Fig Tree 100 Husks 107 Nuts 108 Olive, Olive Oil no Pomegranate 118 Sycamine, Sycomore 121 Vine 124 CHAPTER IV. Grain and Vegetables 134 Barley 137 Beans, Pulse 140 Cucumbers, Gourd, Melons, Wild Vine . .143 Garlick, Leeks, Onions 148 Lentiles 151 Millet 153 CONTENTS. vii PAGE ' RiE,' Wheat 154 Reed, 'Paper Reeds,' Rush, Bulrush, 'Flag' . 157 'Tares' . 162 CHAPTER V. Herbs and Flowers 167 Anise, Mint, Rue 171 Bramble 172 Cockle, Hemlock 173 Coriander, Cummin, Fitches 174 Flax (Linen, Fine Linen) 176 Hyssop 179 Lily, Rose 182 Mallows 187 Mandrakes 188 Mustard 190 Nettle 192 Thistle 193 Wormwood 194 CHAPTER VL Perfumes and Medicines 196 Aloes . 203 Balm 204 Bdellium 205 •ii \'lll CONTENTS. PACE * ' Calamus, Sweet Cane . 206 Cassia, Cinnamon 207 Camphire .... 209 Frankincense . 210 Galbanum, Onycha, Stacte 213 Myrrh .... 214 Nard, Spikenard 217 Saffron .... 2X8 CHAPTER VII. Emblematic use of Plants in Scripture . 221—230 List of Scripture References 231-235 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. — PAGE Pods of the Carob Tree. ' The Husks that the Swine DID eat' Frontispiece Palestine Thorns xii A Ford of the Jordan 14 The Wady Feiran 23 The Hills near Gennesareth 29 Cedars of Lebanon 45 'Abraham's Oak' 69 Egyptian Vegetation 83 SiNAiTic Palms 95 An Oriental Fig Tree 102 Olive Trees in the Garden of Gethsemane . .112 Flowers from the Shores of the Lake of Gennesareth . 166 Balm of Gilead 197 Myrrh 215 c f f 'c < < < c CHAPTER I. SKETCH OF THE VEGETATION OF PALESTINE AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. The interest surrounding that limited portion of Western Asia which modern writers agree to call by its classical name of Palestine, is wholly unparalleled both in nature and degree. The love of the Swiss for their native mountains, or the Scotsman's attachment to the • land of brown heath and shaggy wood,' affords but a faint type of that glowing and reverent affection with which Christians of every race and nation have constantly regarded their more than Fatherland—the birthplace of their faith and hope. The devotion which once drew pilgrims to its venerable metropolis, —to them the geo- graphical centre of the globe,—established hermits amidst its rocky solitudes, and inspired the grand but reckless fanaticism of Crusaders, finds its modern counterpart in a growing and intelligent interest in all that concerns the Holy Land, its history and topography, its past and present inhabitants, and its vegetable and animal pro- ductions. Science has taken the place of superstition ; and without the loss of true reverence, sacred sites, long encircled with the delusive halo of legend and romance, are measured and mapped out by the careful hand of the surveyor. To gain and to preserve a faithful transcript of the material proportions and natural peculiarities of the country ; to trace the course of its once-frequented B 1 /'SKFlfcKjOF •TttE:V^/:;E'TATION OF PALESTINE highways, explore its silent wastes, and disinter from shapeless mounds the scanty and broken relics of former industry and civiHzation ; to enumerate and identify the trees and shrubs which still clothe the hill-sides, the flowers w^hich emblazon the vernal soil, the cattle yet roaming on the upland pastures, and the birds which 'sing,' as of old, 'among the branches'; —all this and much more it has been reserved for our own age to attempt, and in large measure to accomplish, in Israel's ancient heritage : a crusade well worthy of the intelligence, and not less worthy of the piety, of the nineteenth century. Every student of Holy Scripture will naturally seek to form mental conceptions of the scenes amidst which its several portions were written, it records were and the chief events which enacted ; from which, also, its varied and impressive imagery was derived. And to do this with even approximate accuracy demands some acquaintance with the general features of Oriental vegetation. It is true that what Von Humboldt aptly termed the ' physiognomy ' of any country is based primarily on its geological structure, the character and arrangement of its rock-masses ; but the clothing of its stony skeleton, its numberless modifications of external form and colour, are due chiefly to its vegetable life. More than skies or clouds, more than valleys or hills, more than sentient creatures of high or low degree, the trees, shrubs, and flowers of a land give character to its scenery ; impressing the mind by their grandeur, or charming it by their beauty. In a previous volume of the present series-^ the ' Egypt and Syria ; their Physical Features in relation to Bible History. By Sir J. \V. Dawson (,R.T. S., new and revised edition, 1SS7). AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. ^ geological peculiarities of Palestine and the countries which border it have been ably and adequately described. The reader will thus have been made acquainted with those remarkable diversities of elevation by which a territory so small as that of the Hebrews should yet include wdthin itself a climate so strangely varied. If Palestine had been a plain, its climate would have been com_prised in the sub-tropical zone extending from lat. 23!° to 34° ; but, owing to the inequalities of its surface, no less than five out of the eight zones recognized by geographers are represented within its limited area. On the snow-capped peaks of Lebanon the climate approaches an Arctic severity, w^iile the lower parts of the Ghor, or Jordan valley, experience a tropical heat. Between these extremes of temperature we have the climates of the western coast, the inland plains and lower hills, the higher uplands, and the loftier table-lands beyond Jordan. Out of this strangely-varied climate springs a corre- sponding complexity in the animal and vegetable life of the country; and the English traveller is struck with the sight of familiar forms, mingled with exotics which remind him how far he has wandered from the temperate fauna and flora of Northern Europe. Tropical bats, Indian owls, and Ethiopian sun-birds are to be found within the borders of the Holy Land, no less than the robins and skylarks, finches and wrens of colder latitudes. The paper-reeds of Egypt and the palms and acacias of the desert are represented, equally with the oaks, willows, and junipers of Europe. The general aspects of the vegetation of Palestine may be briefly summed up as follows : —The plants B % ; 4 SKETCH OF THE VEGETATION OF PALESTINE common to the plain of the coast and the sotithern high- la?ids are for the most part identical with those found in the other countries bordering the Mediterranean east of the Straits of Gibraltar. Here grow the Aleppo pine, the myrtle and ilex, the grey olive and the green arbutus, the carob or locust tree, the orange and citron ; the vine, the fig-tree, and the pomegranate. The bay and the oleaster flourish on the hills, and the streams are over- hung by the roseate blossoms of the oleander. The rest of the table-lands which constitute the greater part of Palestine, both east and west of the Jordan, include a flora of a more widely diffused character, comprising plants of Central Europe and Western Asia, with not a few species growing in our own island. Among them may be mentioned pines and junipers, the terebinth, the almond, apricot and peach, the hawthorn and mountain ash, the ivy and honeysuckle, the walnut and mulberry ; oaks, poplars, and willows ; the majestic cedars of Lebanon, the melancholy cypress, and the plane-tree with its wide-spreading shade. The vegetation of the Jordan Valley, on the other hand, is of a type most closely allied to that of Northern Africa, with a proportion of Indian, as well as of European, species. Here the date-palm once flourished, though only a few stragglers now remain ; here grow" the acacia and the reteni of the desert (the ' shittim ' and 'juniper' of Scripture), and many less-know-n plants, represented in Africa but not on the European continent. In point of climatal conditions, Palestine is most favourably situated. ' The inhabitants,' says Meyen, 'rejoice in the happiest clime. The warmth of the summer enables tropical plants to grow^ on the plains thus, the date-palm and the fig (the edible species and AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 5 the sycomore-fig) found a home in Southern Syria, in sheltered spots.
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