GRAMINEÆ.

M

(Common millet.)

Panicum miliaceum.

ILLET is one of the common grains of Palestine, and has been cultivated there from the earliest times. There are two sorts, the white and the yellow, both belonging to the Holy Land. Other and perhaps better varieties exist, such as the condigerum, with a spiked panicle, and the effusum, with scattered panicle. But these are found in Germany, France, and England. The Guinea corn, (holcus sorghum,) which some have supposed to be alluded to under the Hebrew word translated "millet," is peculiar to Africa and not to Palestine, which is not the case with the millet, and therefore the latter is most likely the plant spoken of in Scripture. The reference to it occurs only in Ezek. iv. 9, where it is enumerated as one of the components of that bread which was a type of the nature of the prophecy.

115

LABIATE

(Spear-mint.)

Mentha viridis.

in Judea.

HIS variety of mint, rather than the peppermint, seems to have been cultivated and used in Palestine. Pliny speaks of the various dishes in which the mint appeared to give a particularly greeable flavor. It grows readily everywhere, and is therefore of little value, especially Hence the force of our Saviour's words :-"Woe unto you, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law." St. Luke adds rue, and speaks of other herbs. The sentiment is the same; for the plants named were of the simplest and cheapest sort. The Jews tithed the simplest, meanest herbs,which exhibited their exceeding carefulness of form and their corresponding want of reality. The fact that it is mentioned in Scripture only twice, and each time in allusion to the same custom, shows that its importance must have been very slight indeed. Some have supposed that it was one of the bitter herbs with which the Jews ate the passover. The variety is represented in Plate II.

117

CRUCIFERÆ.

66

(Common black mustard.)

Sinapis Nigra.

NTO what is the kingdom of God like? It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it." Objection has been raised to this simile, on the ground that the mustard is not a tree, and that it is not sufficiently large to bear the weight of birds. But there are several facts to be noticed in connection with this passage, which occurs in St. Luke xiii. 19, and with slight variation in Matt. xiii. and Mark iv. The trees upon which birds rest are frequently low, and the terms of the simile are such that it is very evidently intended as figurative. But, though a shrub would be large enough to answer the purposes of the figure, some former growths were evidently greater than at present. Sir Thomas Browne says that if we accept of but half the story noticed by Tremellius, from the Jerusalem Talmud, of a mustard-tree that could be climbed like a fig-tree, and of another under whose shade a potter daily wrought, the expression may be literally understood. We have frequently passed mustard-trees, during our travels in the Holy Land, in which small birds lodged, and which, in contrast with the seeds from which they had sprung,