UMBELLIFERÆ.

US

(Anise of Scripture. Common Dill.)

Matt. xxiii. 23.

Anethum graveolens.

E must explain the use of this name before commencing to speak of the plant it represents. The word in Matt. xxiii. 23, translated ANISE, signifies "to run up," and in its spelling is anethon rather than anise. It refers to a species of herb known as the Anethum in the time of our Saviour, and even before that time, as appears probable from the similarity of the word to that used by Virgil, who speaks of its fragrance thus:

Et florem jungit bene olentis anethi.

"And adds the flower of the fragrant dill."

The plant is therefore not properly anise, which, though of the same order, is a different variety.

The usual height of the anethum is about two feet, having leaves similar to the parsley, and bearing bunches of small flowers, not particularly pleasing, called umbels; whence the name of the order. It was probably an unimportant article, and occasionally used in the Jewish method of embalming among the poorer classes. Its insignificance made the remark of our Saviour more forcible:-"Woe unto you, scribes and

Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

Some have supposed that the anise of Matt. xxiii. 23 was the same as the present anise, and not the anethum. But the latter still grows near Nazareth in the month of July, which shows that there is no reason for changing the meaning of the original word to "anise," especially as there is a distinctive word for anise and as the Greek seldom uses the same word for two varieties of the same plant.

The scriptural allusion to this plant has reference to its unimportance, which might be inferred from the fact that it is spoken of but once. It illustrates the minuteness of the Jewish forms, which required the offering of the tenth part of even so insignificant a plant.

In the group of those plants represented in the second plate that on the right is the Anethum.

GRAMINEE.

Hordeum.

Ex. ix. 31; Numb. v. 15; Deut. viii. 8; Ruth i. 22, ii. 23, iii. 2, 15, 17.

Co general has been the cultivation of barley that almost all traces of its native country have been lost. The same remark will apply to several of the most useful grains; and it is worthy of notice that the seeds or grains best suited to support the human family are of such a nature as to adapt themselves to the largest surface of soil and the greatest variety of temperature. Rice, maize or Indian corn, and wheat, are the most widely spread; and barley, with oats, extends very far north in Europe, the former being cultivated as high up as 70° north latitude.

In Syria the cultivation of barley has given rise to many apparent contradictions among travellers, as well as variation in their notices of the times of sowing and gathering. Some have remarked that in September and October the natives are engaged in planting; others have postponed the plantingseason to February, and even March. These variations are easily accounted for by the fact that barley is sown in that country in some places in the fall, and the natives, interrupted by the rains, postpone planting the remaining seed until the opening of spring. It has often been noticed that in the same. week the barley in one field-for example, near Gaza-was

just in leaf when in another-perhaps in Egypt-it was ripe; and not only so, but within sight of the same hill some crops are ripe while others are quite green and unfit to cut. Generally the crops near Jerusalem are ready for the harvest about the latter part of March, and farther north, toward Tyre, not till April; whereas about Beirût and Damascus the farmer must wait till the middle and close of April. The Arabs, however, plant barley at various times out of the barley-season; and therefore it has been seen ripe as late as July: in such cases it has to be watered by hand. It is now cultivated for horses and for making bread, but for the latter purpose it was more generally used in ancient times than at present.

The Israelites doubtless first learned the use of barley in Egypt, where it was so long known as to be considered originally the gift of Osiris, their god, to whom its discovery was attributed. Herodotus says that the Egyptians drank a "liquor fermented from barley," which seems to have been a kind of wine rather than beer; and even in modern times a traveller (Pococke) speaks of a beer made of this grain which was drunk among the poorer Arabs whom he visited, but its intoxicating qualities were due to something with which it was mixed. Among the Caffres barley furnishes an intoxicating drink from simple fermentation, though unmixed. As the Israelites must have been acquainted with this drink, which appears to have been much stronger than the wines of the East, it probably formed the "strong drink" referred to in the

* Euterpe, 77.