SCRIPTURE BOTANY OF CEYLON.

BY WILLIAM FERGUSON, ESQ.

The following familiar observations on some of the Plants mentioned in the Bible, and which are indigenous to, or are related to genera and species growing or known in Ceylon, form portion of a lecture delivered by me last year to the Young Men's Christian Association in Colombo.

During my inquiries into this subject, I made free use of all the authorities at my command, and therefore, to those who have read one of the various works on the Botany of the Bible, it is not likely that much original matter will be found in these observations, further than the identification of the plants with our Ceylon ones.

CINNAMON AND CASSIA.

(21 kurundu Sin. Cinnamomum Zeylanicum. Nees.) The word Cinnamon occurs four times in the Bible, first about 1,600 years before the Christian era, in Exodus xxx. ver. 23, where it is enumerated as amongst the ingredients employed in the preparation of the holy anointing oil. "Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much." Again "I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. (Prov. vii. 17.) "Spikenard and saffron, callamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense." (Cant. iv. 14.) While in Revelation, among the merchandise of Babylon, we have enumerated Cinnamon and odours, and ointments and frankincense." (Rev. xviii. 13.)

Besides the real Cinnamon here undoubtedly referred to, (the Cinnamomum Zeylanicum), we have four other species indigenous to the Island, one of which, lately discovered by the present Director of the Botanic Gardens, has the perfume of the Lemon Grass so well known in Ceylon. The plant discovered by Mr. Thwaites, bears a name signifying that it has this resemblance.

The references in the

Bible to this famous spice have called forth the powers of investigation of several authors, who have thrown considerable light on the subject and on the countries supposed to have produced the Cinnamon of the Bible.

I need not enter into details respecting the Cinnamon plant, for which our Island is renowned above all other places on the face of the earth.

I cannot say much about "the Spicy breezes," perceived by voyagers off the coast and described by Poets, but there is no doubt that after a shower of rain the air in the Cinnamon Gardens is perfumed with the pleasant odour of various flowers around. The odour of the Cinnamon flower is neither powerful nor peculiar.

I had the pleasure, in 1858, of examining in the British Museum specimens of the Cinnamon plant collected by Paul Hermann in this Island about 200 years ago, and which formed the origin of the Laurus Cinnamomum and L. Cassia of Linnæus, the latter of which did not differ from the former excepting by the narrowness of its leaves, and they seemed to have been made so by the free use of a pair of scissors.

The Cassia of commerce is the produce of several species of Cinnamon, as well as of the real Cinnamon tree, the inferior kinds from Ceylon having been sold as Cassia. Milton makes several allusions to Cassia—

and now is come

Into the blissful field through groves of my.rh

And flowery odours, cassia, nard and balm."

K

"Paradise Lost," Book 5.

You all remember the hackneyed allusion to the "spicy gales of Araby the blest" founded on the early idea that the Cinnamon which the Arabs carried to the shores of the Mediterranean was the produce of Arabia.

"There eternal summer dwells,

And west winds with musky wing
About the cedar'd alleys fling
Nard and Cassia's balmy smells."

"Sleep in thy peace that bed of spice,
And makes this place all paradise ;
Let balm and cassia send their scent,
From out thy maiden monument."

Herrick, "Dirge of Jephtha."

Notwithstanding questions raised as to Cinnamon being indigenous to Ceylon, there can be no doubt of the fact, and very little as to Ceylon being the source whence the Arabs derived the Cinnamon which the caravans took down to Egypt and Palestine.

OLIVE.

"The dove came into him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the face of the earth." (Gen. viii. 11)

"The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them; should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees." (Judges ix. 8, 9.)

This is one of the earliest and oftenest mentioned trees in the Bible, and is by universal consent admitted to be the same as the one now known by that name. It is indigenous to Syria, to the South of Europe, as well as to parts of Africa.

Olive oil and Olives are extensive articles of commerce. The fragrant olive of China with which the Chinese are said to flavor their tea, was introduced to Ceylon many years ago, and we have two other species of Olive indigenous to the Island, but neither of them must be confounded with the 6 veralu or illupie trees, which belong to two distinct Natural Orders, and both considerably separated from the Olive.

I suggest this precaution, from the fact that some of my friends of the American Mission at Jaffna are in the habit of alluding to the illupei, which is one of the most valuable trees of the Northern Peninsula, as the Ceylon Olive tree, and because in this quarter Europeans are in the habit of calling the veralu the Olive. The fruits of this latter tree do indeed bear such an outward resemblance to the Olive, that the genus to which it belongs, has in consequence of this resemblance, been called Elaeocarpus. The nuts of an allied species are those known to you all as the "Brahmin beads," which, mounted as bracelets, are very commonly worn by ladies.

MUSTARD.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in a field; which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." (Matt. xiii. 31, 32.)

Perhaps the plant here translated Mustard, has called forth as much research and learned disquisition as any one named in the Bible. Some writers attempt to prove that because a species of the plant which produces Mustard (Sinapis) grows in Palestine to a considerable size, no other plant could have been meant ; but the late Dr. Royle produced incontrovertible evidence to prove that the tree here meant is the Salvadora Persica of Botanists, a small tree, native of the hot dry parts

of India, and of Persia, Arabia, and Ceylon. In a note to an article on the Flora of Ceylon, contributed by the late Dr. Gardener to the Appendix to Mr. Lee's translation of "Ribeyro's History of Ceylon," it is mentioned, that he considered himself the first to discover this plant in our Island; but it seems, from a notice in Ainslie's "Materia Indica," to have been known as a native of Ceylon many years previously. It is a common plant on the small Islands in the vicinity of Jaffna, and some specimens which I saw several years ago growing on what is called "Small-pox Island," close to Jaffnapatam, bore a general resemblance to the weeping Ash tree. Its seeds taste a good deal like Garden Cresses, and its bark, which is acrid and raises blisters upon the skin, (in this resembling the Plumbago Zeylanica,) is used as medicine. There are two species of the genus indigenous to Ceylon.

SYCAMORE.

"Over the olive trees and the sycamore trees that were in the low plains was Baal-hanan the Gederite." (I Chron. xxvii. 28.)

The tree here and elsewhere referred to as the Sycamore (Ficus sycamorus), is admitted to have been a species of Fig tree, the fruit of which is like the common Fig, and the leaves like those of the Mulberry: hence the name.

We have no less than 22 species of the genus to which the Sycamore belongs, and one, the 3 gan aṭṭikka (Ficus glomeratus), bears a great resemblance to the tree here referred to. Some of the species are creeping plants, covering stones and rocks, and the stems of forest trees, somewhat after the fashion of the English Ivy; while others are amongst the giants of the forest. The famous Banyan belongs to them, and when at Jaffna, I measured one in the vicinity, which, with its hundreds of depending shoots, covered an acre and 1-12th of ground. This is the tree to which Milton alludes in Paradise Lost, as the fig tree whose leaves formed the first