-bearing the name of okra, a native of the Levant, and not a stranger in this country, used when green or unripe, in soups. This is supposed to be of the same class as the Jew's mallow; and it is certainly very similar in the form of its flowers and fruit.

The Scripture representation proves that it was the food of the poorest classes; and the Hebrew term malluach may have given rise to the present name.

SOLANACEÆ.

a

Atropa Mandragora. (Officinalis.)

HE mandrake, which in European countries has a white. flower, bears a purple flower in Palestine. The root is like a parsnip in color and shape, and when old is forked, and runs into the ground to the depth of about

four feet. Just above the root is a tuft of leaves, from the midst of which spring the flowers. The fruit of the mandrake in Palestine, like the flower, differs from the product of the plant in other countries,-being as large as a small apple, and of a fragrant smell and ruddy color. Many very superstitious notions were connected with the singular form of the mandrake-root, and sorcerers were supposed to be able to extract poison from it. The belief was, that when the plant was drawn from the earth it uttered such an awful shriek that he who drew it forth could not live after hearing the cry. Hence a dog was fastened to the plant in the evening; and, struggling to get free, he tore up the root and perished at the horrible cry which it uttered. In the morning the dead dog and the root were found fastened together. The root was then subjected to the witches' art and the poison extracted. To this superstition Shakspeare alludes in the Second Part of Henry VI., wherein he makes Suffolk say,—

"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan."

But science has triumphed over ignorance and superstition, and the mandrake is now eaten as harmless and even wholesome food. Its soothing and soporific powers were of service before the juice of the poppy superseded it; and so late as the time of James I. the narcotic virtues of the mandragora were known and applied. It has been found in Galilee and in Judea. Burckhardt speaks of it, and Maundrell heard of it as growing in Samaria. By the Arabs this plant is called "tufah al Sheitan," the devil's apple. It is represented in color and shape in Plate V.

CUCURBITACEÆ.

Cucumis Melo.

Or is surprising how great a variety of plants of this class exist at present in Egypt. It is probable, however, that a number of these varieties were unknown during the residence of the Israelites in that land. The only passage

where the word "melon" occurs in our version is that wherein their dissatisfaction is spoken of, and their weeping for the pleasant fruits they had left behind them. Nothing would have been more likely to be remembered than the melon; for this pleasant, cooling fruit was singularly adapted to quench the thirst which they suffered in the fatiguing journeys to which they were subject during the forty years' life in the desert. The melon named above seems to be nearest in kind to those referred to in Num. xi. 5, and does not materially differ either in size, taste, or shape from the melon known in many of our Southern States.

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