RUTE.

a

Ruta Graveolens.

HIS little plant is mentioned but once,-in Luke xi. 42, to which passage we shall refer hereafter. It is a perennial plant, seldom growing more than three feet high,-usually not more than two. The leaves are divided or doubly pinnate, and rather thicker than is usual in plants of this size. The bark of the plant near the base is rough and woody; and the stem terminates in several branches ending in smooth, soft, green twigs. The flowers are small and yellow, and occur in such numbers at the top of the plant that they might almost be said to grow in clusters. The petals are four or five in number and concave, with usually ten stamens, sometimes only eight. Its flowering-time in European countries is from June to September. The plant is at present used as a stimulant; but it has a disagreeable odor and a hot, acrid, and bitter taste. The ancients used it as a condiment, and believed it to have the power of preventing poisons from affecting the human system. Even at present it is supposed to have the quality of warding off infection; and it is said that in some places in Britain it is strewed about the halls of justice, as a preventive of disease which criminals might convey from their cells to the court whither they are brought for trial. This little plant is supposed to be a native of Southern Europe.

Hasselquist says that he saw "rue" on Mount Tabor. He does not speak of it as cultivated; and we are left to suppose that it grew wild.

The plant was evidently of no importance; and hence its appropriateness in the catalogue to which we have already referred, as forming one of those plants the tithing of which indicated the minute regard of the Jews to the mere form of the law, while they neglected and passed over judgment and the love of God.

JUNCEÆ.

T

HIS plant is a native of cold climates; but travellers have spoken of the rush as growing on the borders of the Red ရာ Sea and in various parts of the Holy Land. Among

the ancients the rush was esteemed for its excellency

as a material for mat-making, as it is at present in Japan and other countries. By the Romans it was used for fishermen's floats, and it is still thus used on the Mediterranean, being attached to the nets. Anciently, the pith, carefully extracted, served as wicks for lighting the apartments of the dead; and even now among the poor in various European countries the rush candle sheds its dim light upon the cradle of the infant in many a lowly cabin room during the long and weary nights of sickness.

The only references in Scripture are in Job viii. 11 and in Isa. ix. 14, xix. 15, and xxxv. 7,-from which we can obtain but little knowledge of its character; but in one passage the remark, "Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the branch or rush may do," leads us to think that the rush was used for some insignificant purpose in that day, which, small as it was, should cease in the utter overthrow of the prosperity of the country.

The softer texture of the rush makes it preferable to wheatstraw used in many places for mattresses; and about two hundred years ago even the palace-floors of wealthy sovereigns, both kings and queens, were covered with rushes, carpets not being then known. Several farms or manors in Great Britain are still held upon the condition that the tenant shall furnish rushes for the floor of the sovereign's bed-chamber when he shall visit the neighboring hunting-places and castles.

GRAMINACEÆ.

a

Secale Cereale, or
Triticum Spelta.

HERE is some disagreement as to which of the varieties. given above is the "rye" of Scripture. It is supposed that the "rye" of Isaiah xxviii. 25 is that known by us because the same kind is found both at the foot

as rye, of Mount Caucasus and in Syria, especially as most of the plants and trees mentioned by this prophet are found in the North of Palestine. Herodotus speaks of a kind of bread, called cyllestis, made from spelt,-a kind of bearded wheat much cultivated in Egypt in ancient times. This was probably the "rye" of Exodus ix. 32, which ripened about the time. of the wheat,—as we find in that passage that the wheat and rye were not injured in the hailstorm, for they were grown up. The two places above referred to are the only ones in which the word occurs in the Scriptures.