GREEN BAY. BAY. Two plants claim to be the Bay of Scripture: these are - Nerium Oleander, -Rose Bay. Linnæan classes [ Laurus nobilis, ENNEANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Nerium Oleander, PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. and orders, Natural orders, { f Laurus nobilis, Laurinæ. Nerium Oleander, APOCYNACEÆ. "I HAVE seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green Bay tree; yet he passed away." -Ps. xxxvii. This striking exclamation is the only passage in which the Bay tree is named in our version of the Bible; how beautiful, how natural is the comparison ! The word rendered "green Bay tree," in this text, appears, however, to have a more general application, and to mean "flourishing, beautiful, green;" the word tree being understood.* So in the first Psalm, in describing the righteous man, it is simply, "he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." In the fourth chapter of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar describes himself as flourishing in his palace, that is, like a healthy tree. The Laurus nobilis, or Sweet Bay, is a native of the East; and, although the modern traveller does not * Esrach, translated Bay tree in the English Bible, according to Celsius, is "green, flourishing, ornamental :" he instances the Psalms and Daniel. often meet with it in Judea, it luxuriates in the old gardens of Tyre and Sidon*, and in Palestine itself is found by some forgotten tower, or deserted winepress. ROSE BAY. About a century ago, the pious and eager traveller, * Modern Zur and Seide. Hasselquist, was struck with the sight of a valley in Judea, where, by the side of a stream, thickets of various shrubs, especially the Rose Bay, or Nerium Oleander, were in full blossom. The splendour of the Nerium immediately recalled to his memory the tree planted by the rivers of water of the Psalmist, and the spreading Bay tree, to which the wicked man is likened in his prosperity. His letters, addressed to Linnæus, suggested the substitution of the Nerium for the Laurus; the idea was adopted, and Sprengel and others have implicitly followed it. The Nerium is certainly one of the most ornamental shrubs of Palestine. We find it enlivening the banks of the Jordan, mixed with the willow and the tamarisk; Oleander and myrtle in blossom perfume the air around the Lake of Tiberias, according to the relation of recent travellers; and I have heard my friend Mr. Roberts* talk admiringly of the magnificent Oleanders that grow along the stream that once rendered Petra habitable, and almost fill up the entrance to the valley, while the flaunting bramble, * David Roberts, Esq. R. A., whose beautiful drawings of Egypt, the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai, and the Holy Land, need no commendation of mine. |