50 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



refuted on the ground of intentional deceit on the part of the 

 gardener entrusted with the cultivation. Still less does the state- 

 ment mentioned hy linger* as a curiosity, that a bulb found in 

 the hand of a mummy developed, require refutation. 



The Papyrus plant (Cyperus Papyrus, L.) has i)articular 

 interest on account of the controversy raised about twenty years 

 ago on the supposed difference between the African s^^ecies and 

 that in our Botanic gardens. According to the researches of 

 Parlatore,f the latter, which it is well known is naturalized very 

 completely at Syracuse, and occurs at other places in Sicily, in 

 Malta, and in Syi'ia, under the name of Cyperus syriacus, Pari., 

 differs in the drooping branches of the umbel, from the old 

 Egyptian Cyperus Papyrus, Pari., still occuriiig on the Upper Nile, 

 which has stiff, erect umbel-branches. At any rate " the Papyrus 

 is always represented on monuments with an erect top. Never- 

 theless, Caspary showed soon afterwards from specimens of the 

 Egyptian Museum here the untenability of the difference insisted on 

 byPaiiatore. Oliver .| later ex^Dressed himself of a similar opinion, 

 and the specimens from the Upper White Nile, collected by 

 Schweinfurth, are in no way different from those of Sicily. 

 [Schweinfurth himself, who had the opportunity of examining the 

 Sicilian Papyrus a few months after the Soudanian one, expresses 

 his firm conviction of the identity of both plants.] The Pa^iyrus, 

 which was much cultivated in Lower 'Egypt, where it presumably 

 occurred wild§ in ancient times, and for which region it appears 

 as the hieroglyphical sjanbol, was emploj^ed as a textile material 

 in addition to its best known use in the manufacture of paper ; its 

 rhizome, which is rich in starch, served also m ancient times as a 

 means of nourishment. Strabo|| has stated, that the Egyptians 

 intentionally restricted its cultivation to a few localities. In later 

 times, after the invention of rag-XDai^er, the Papyrus was com- 

 pletely abandoned. At the time of the French occupation Delilell 

 mentions it as still at Damietta. Since then no one has met with 

 it again in Egypt, and it may very probably have quite died out in 

 the land in which it was formerly so extensively cultivated, while it 

 still persists in Sicily and Syria, into which lands it was probably 

 introduced in course of the Middle Ages, presumably from Egypt. 

 In order to find it wild, one must now penetrate to the Upper 

 Blue or White Nile. It is generally distributed in tropical Africa, 



* L. c, xxxviii. 28, p. 108. 



+ ' Memoire sur le Papyrus 'des ancieus et sur le Papyrus de Sicile.' Extrait 

 du Tome xii. des in era. pres. pnr divers savans a I'academie. Paris, 1853. 

 + ' Kew Gardens Guide,' 25 ed. p. 21. 



§ The precious naive picture of a Hippopotamus-hunt in the Mastaba of 

 the Ti in Saqqarah shows us a Papyrus thicket, on the tops of which 

 numerous birds were resting and being taken by surprise by marten-like beasts 

 of prey. Such a representation cannot from its nature refer to cultivated 

 objects. 



li P. 790, Casaub. Couip. E, Meyer, ' Botan. Rrlauterungen zu Strabon's 

 Geographic,' Konig::,berg, 1852, p. 152. 



^i ' Descr. de I'Egypte, Hist. Nat.' ii. p. 50. 



