308 Mr D. Don o?i the Mustard Tree. 



It is figured and described by the late Dr Roxburgh in 

 his splendid work on the plants of the coast of Coromandel 

 — a work which we regret to see discontinued by the Court of 

 Directors. In that work the following interesting remarks on 

 the Salvadora persica are given, which will be found to coin- 

 cide entirely with what Captains Irby and Mangles have ob- 

 served. " This is a middle sized tree, a native of most parts of 

 the Circars, though by no means common ; it seems to grow 

 equally well in every soil : flowers, and bears ripe fruit all the 

 year round. The berries have a strong aromatic smell, and 

 taste much like garden-cresses. The bark of the root is remark- 

 ably acrid ; bruised and applied to the skin it soon raises blisters, 

 for which purpose the natives often use it ; as a stimulant it pro- 

 mises to be a medicine possessed of very considerable powers." 

 The Salvador a persica has an extensive geographical range, being 

 found in Arabia, Syria, Persia, and India, between the parallels of 

 18° and 31° north latitude. The parallel of 31° appears to be its 

 ultimate limit towards the north. I am far from assuming this tree 

 to be identical with the apocryphal mustard plant of the Sacred 

 Scriptures: indeed, the whole passage in the Gospel by St Mat- 

 thew * appears to militate against such an opinion, and it would 

 seem that some common agricultural herb, of large growth, had 

 been intended by our Saviour in the parable ; but whether the 

 plant belongs to the same family with Sinapis of Linnaeus, and 

 for what purposes it was cultivated, are questions rendered quite 

 problematical at this distant date. We are pretty certain, how- 

 ever, that it cannot be a Phytolacca ; for it does not appear that 

 any real species of that genus has been observed in Palestine. 

 It is true, that, in an academical dissertation of Linnaeus, enti- 

 tled, " Flora Palcestinay'' published in the year 1756, and pro- 

 fessing to embrace all the plants observed by Hasselquist, we find 

 the name of Phytolacca asiatica, by which is probably intend- 

 ed the Salvador a persica, a plant with which Linnaeus does not 

 appear to have ever been well acquainted, and of which he pro- 

 bably derived all his knowledge from Garcin's description, pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Transactions of the lloyal Society oi' 



" " A mustard-seed .... which indeed is the least of all seeds ; but when it is 

 grown, it is the greatest among h^bs, and becometh a tree ; ^so that the birds 

 of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." 



