SYCAMORE 147 



as the sycamore, but was either a species of fig, the Ficus 

 sycomorus^ or the black mulberry. Moms nigra. The 

 former tree is the one generally accepted. It is referred 

 to in Psalm Ixxviii., and in i Chronicles xxvii., by the 

 Hebrew words shikmim, shikmoth, but it is not at all 

 a common tree in Palestine ; while the latter, the black 

 mulberry, still called sycominos in Greece, is very abundantly 

 found in the Holy Land, and is held by others to be 

 the tree referred to by St. Luke. The subject is not free 

 from difficulty. 



The introduction of the sycamore into England can 

 scarcely have been so early as the days of the Crusaders, 

 since it is a tree that sows itself very freely, and yet we 

 find writers on plants centuries after the Crusades, referring 

 to it as a rarity. Gerard, writing his Herball in 1597, 

 declares that " the great Maple is a stranger In England, 

 only it groweth in the walks and places of pleasure of noble 

 men, when it specially is planted for the shadow sake, and 

 vnder the name of Sycomore." Parkinson, a little later, 

 says, " It is nowhere found wilde or naturall in our land, 

 that I can tell, but only planted in orchards or walkes 

 for the shadowes sake." Chaucer in The Flowre and 

 the Leafe, mentions it, but only as a plant under conditions 

 that suggest cultivation — 



And so I followed till it me brought 



To right a pleasaunt herber well ywrought 



That benched was, and with turfes new 



Freshly turned whereof the greene gras 



So small, so thicke, so short, so fresh of hew 



That most like vnto greene welwot it was. 



The hegge also that yede in compas 



.'^nd closed in all the green herbere 



With Sicamour was set and eglatere. 



