56 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



(1.) Acacia nilotica, Del. " Cant." The employment of the 

 flowers of this tree, which was generally distributed throughout 

 ancient Egypt, as it is now, in the making of wreaths, was men- 

 tioned by Theophrastus."'' 



(2.) Chrysanthemum coronarium, L. This plant, which grows 

 wild generally over the Mediterranean region, and is not rarely 

 cultivated in our gardens, is found in Egypt only at Alexandria, 

 but may possibly have been grown in the flower gardens of the 

 ancient Egyptians. 



(3). A species of Centaiirea, which from the small fragments at 

 command have never been determined with certainty. — .4.] 



Other wreaths are ornamented with the leaves of Nymphcsa 

 cmrulea or the blue Lotus. [The specimens sent were ascertained 

 by Prof. E. Caspary to be the petals of a Xymjyhaa; about the 

 sj)ecies nothing nearer could be made out. — A.] 



Funeral wreaths of mummies of an older period, for instance, of 

 the time of Oskaron (22nd Dynasty), and of the time of the 25th 

 Djmasty, consist of olive leaves. [Mr. Pleyte has sent a specimen 

 of these also. — A.] These funeral wreaths were a symbol of the 

 justification of the departed before the judgment seat of Osiris. 

 This " Crown of Justification " is mentioned several times in the 

 ' Book of the Dead,' e. ^., in cap. 19, which however m the editions 

 of the ' Book of the Dead ' first appears after the 27th Dynasty, 

 In the 97th chapter, it is said that the justified receives the crown 

 under the holy Nehet-tree {i. e., the Sycamore). Also in other 

 writings of the time of Ptolemy, these crowns of justification are 

 mentioned. Unfortunately nothing is said of what these crowns 

 were composed, and it still therefore remains an open question 

 what tree-name handed down from antiquity relates to Mimusops. 



Among the Passalacqua seeds there are to be found under 

 No. 459 the seeds of a species of Cucurhitace(B, which Kunthf has 

 not determined more exactly. These belong undoubtedly to the 

 water-melon, Citrullus vuhjaris, Schrad., and the establishing of 

 the existence of these seeds in ancient Egyptian tombs is all the 

 more important since it has of late been clearly shown that this 

 XDlant has its home in Africa. Not only in the Upper Nile region | 

 but also in different other districts in West and South Africa have 

 water-melons been met with, the fruits of which are much smaller 

 and less juicy than those of the cultivated plants. [However, E. 

 de Pruyssenaere§ states that these wild water-melons, after a short 

 time of continued cultivation, assume all the properties of the 

 cultivated i)lants] . 



It can therefore scarcely be doubted that the water-melon was 

 early cultivated in Egypt, and that it spread from there to 

 Asia Minor, and later to south and south-east Europe (South 

 Russia, Hungary). This fruit is expressly named in that weU- 



* ' Hist. Plant. Lib.' iv., cap. 2, 8. 



+ ' Passalacqua Catal.'p. 220. « Ann. Sc. Nat.'viii., p. 423. 



X Compare Schweinfurth, ' Beitrag zur Flora Aethiopiens,' p. 250. 



§ ' Sitzung.slter. der Ges. Naturf. Freunde,' Berlin, 15 May, 1877. p. 148. 



