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LEGUMINOSE.

(Common Lentil.)

Cicer Lens, and Ervum Lens. (Knight.)

MONG the various kinds of pulse or beans the lentil is mentioned first, and it formed one of the most ancient articles of food. The lentil is one of those plants which formerly flourished where now it seems to be rapidly disappearing. Other articles of food are taking its place, and its cultivation is therefore of little importance. The plant is inclined to fasten itself after the manner of the pea, bears similar blossoms, and has a pod in which the small brown or reddish seeds or beans are found.

Esau's pottage consisted of red lentils. They are mentioned among the articles of food furnished to David when flying from Absalom, as recorded in 2 Sam. xvii.; and the prophet Ezekiel speaks of them as forming with other grains the material of the bread he was to use in his affliction. These are the only places wherein it is mentioned in the Scriptures. The French traveller D'Arvieux speaks of a tradition existing among the Arabs that Esau sold his birthright in Hebron, near the cave of Machpelah; and in commemoration of this event a college of dervises at this place daily cook pottage of lentils and distribute to the poor. The red lentil is supposed to be the best of the three kinds cultivated in the South of Europe, Barbary, Egypt, and the Levant.

LILIACEÆ.

Lilium Candidum.

HIS beautiful flower is said to be a native of Palestine, and seems formerly to have flourished more extensively than at present. The lily is spoken of in Solomon's Song, but is, according to Sprengel, in the Arabic and Chaldee versions translated "jonquil" or "narcissus." This latter plant is very similar to the daffodil; and the Arabs gathered it for us around Jericho, where it grows wild in profusion. It springs up, in January and February, along the damp borders of streams or in shady places near rocks. Some have supposed that the capitals of the pillars of Solomon's temple, which in Kings and Chronicles are said to have been made after the likeness of lilies, were modelled after the Egyptian lotus. The greater probability is that they were in imitation of the lily, as it is reasonable to suppose that the architect would copy the flowers of the land rather than those of Egypt. The same may be said of the ornaments of the molten sea, which had its brim "wrought like to the flowers of lilies."

There is a tradition that the lily anciently grew in such profusion on the plains of Sharon, east of Joppa, that it was customary to use the dried stalks of the plant to heat the ovens. wherein bread was baked. To this luxuriant growth the prophet Hosea probably refers where he writes (xiv. 5) of Israel, that" he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon."

MALVACEÆ.

(Jew's Mallow.)

Corchorus Olitorius.

F the several varieties of mallow native in Syria, the one above named seems to be beyond doubt the kind referred to by Job, (xxx. 4:)—“But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste: who cut up mallows by the bushes... for their meat." The mallow-leaves have been in later times used as pot-herbs; and in A.D. 1600 it was written in Purchas's Pilgrims, "After the shower, while our horses were preparing, we walked into the fields near unto the church, [of Lacmihe,] and saw many poor people gathering mallows and three-leaved grasse. I asked them what they did with it; and they answered that it was all their food, and they did eate it. Then we took pitie on them, and gave them bread, which they received very joyfully, and blessed God that there was bread in the world, and said that they had not seen bread the space of many months." It is said that this mallow is still eaten in Egypt and Arabia.

There is a podded mallow,―the hibiscus esculentus of Linnæus,

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