racter of the tree. One is valuable and in large clusters, the other minute and of little worth. It should be remembered that the vineyards of the East are seldom or never formed in high or large arbors, but that the vines are small, being pruned down to a certain height and sustained by short sticks set in rows. The general impression derived from the allusions of Scripture is that the plant grew freely without culture and was not very welcome for its flowers or fruit: hence its profusion was a sign of a neglected country. ROSACEÆ. a (Sweet-Brier.) Rosa camina. HIS variety of the rose seems to be a native of Palestine. Perhaps it wandered from the more distant East many centuries past and first found there a congenial soil. It is susceptible of a cultivation which alters the character of the flower in some respects, producing a larger and more beautiful corolla than it possesses when found wild. Several beautiful varieties in the gardens of England were originally the sweet-brier. The word occurs eleven times in the Hebrew Scriptures, but is not always rendered "brier" in the English version, for it also signifies "scorpion;" and the scorpion and brier have some points in common. An ancient method of punishment for crimes was by rods of thorns or briers, which tore the flesh while inflicting the stroke and smart of the ordinary smooth rod. Hence reference may have been made to this mode when Rehoboam (1 Kings xii. 11) very unadvisedly threatened the people, saying, "My father has chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions," that is, with rods or whips made of briers. These words are repeated in the same chapter and in the tenth of Second Chronicles. This was also the method pursued by Gideon when he "taught" the men of Succoth with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers. Though the single pink rose known to us as the sweetbrier is rather pleasant as a wild flower, it leaves upon the stem a red berry, wholly unfit for food; is quite ephemeral, and not very fragrant; and the roots run through the ground, often intruding upon plants of greater value. At the same time, its thorns are unusually thick and sharp. Hence it has never been a favorite, and seems to have been always spoken of with contempt in the Scriptures, or as used for the punishment to which we have already alluded. CYPERACEÆ. Typha latifolia. ELSIUS supposes that the word translated "bulrush" in the 66 'paper-reed" of Isaiah xix. 7 is in the original a term for reeds generally. His supposition is sustained by a host of authorities and circumstances. Hasselquist, the Oriental botanist, describes two varieties of reed growing near the Nile. "One of them has scarcely any branches, but numerous leaves, which are narrow, smooth, channelled on the upper surface, and the plant is about eleven feet high. The Egyptians make ropes of the leaves. They make floats of this reed, which they use when they fish with nets. The other sort is of great consequence. It is a small reed, about two or three feet high, full-branched, with short, sharp, lancet-shaped leaves. The roots, which are as thick as the stem, creep and mat themselves together to a considerable distance. The plant seems useless in ordinary life; but to it is the very soil of Egypt owing; for the matted roots have stopped the earth which floated in the water, and formed out of the sea a country that is habitable." It is very probable that the little ark made for the infant Moses by his mother was constructed of the reeds of this or a similar plant, tied together by the long leaves which each stem |