294 pFant Tsore, Isec^en^r, and. "bqric/, 



ever, identified with the Kikayon, which God caused to rise up and 

 shelter Jonah. 



Joseph's Flower — See Goat's Beard. 



JUDAS TREE.— The Fig, the Tamarisk, the Aspen, the 

 Dog Rose, the Elder, and the Cercis have all been named as the 

 tree from whose boughs the traitorous Judas, overcome with 

 remorse, hung himself in guilty despair. The idea that the Fig- 

 tree was the tree whereon Judas sought his fate, is a wide-spread 

 one, and probably derives its origin from the fa(5l of our Lord 

 having cursed an unprodudtive Fig-tree, — the tradition being that, 

 after this malediiftion, the tree lost its foliage, and soon died; that 

 its wood, when put in the fire, produced smoke, but no flame; and 

 that all its progeny from that time forth became wild Fig-trees. 



A Fig-tree growing on the coast of Coromandel, bears the 



name of Judas' Purse. De Gubernatis, on the authority of 



Dr. J. Pitre, states that, according to a Sicilian tradition, Judas 

 was not hung on a Fig, but on a Tamarisk-tree, called Vruca 

 {Tamarix Africana), much more common than the Tamarix Gallica. 

 The Vnica is only a shrub ; but, say the Sicilians, once upon a time 

 it was a great tree, and very handsome. Since, however, the 

 traitor Judas hung himself from its boughs, the tree, owing to a 

 Divine maledicftion, became merely a shrub, ugly, mis-shapen, 

 small, useless, not even capable of lighting even the smallest fire ; 

 from whence has arisen the proverb: "You are like the wood of 



the Vnica, which neither yields cinders nor fire." A Russian 



proverb says: "There is a tree which trembles, although the wind 

 does not blow." In the Ukraine, they state that the leaves of the 

 Aspen {Populus trenmla) have trembled and shaken ever since the 



day that Judas hanged himself on a bough of that tree. In 



Germany, the Dog Rose {Rosa canina) is a tree of ill repute, and 

 according to tradition, one with which the Devil has had dealings. 

 (See Eglantine). There is a legend that Judas hanged himself 

 on this tree; that in consequence it became accursed, and ever 

 after turned to the earth the points of its thorns; and that from 



this cause its berries, to this day, are called Judasheeren. In 



England and other countries, there has long existed a tradition 

 that the Elder was the tree on which the traitor-disciple hanged 

 himself. Sir John Maundevile, in his ' Travels,' declares that he 

 saw the identical tree; and we read in ' Piers Plowman's Vision': — 



" Judas, he japed 

 With Jewen silver, 

 And sithen on an Eller 

 Hanged hymselfe." 



Gerarde, however, in his 'Herbal' (1597) denies that the Elder 

 was the tree, but states that the Arhov JudcB, the Judas-tree, is the 

 Cercis Siliquastrum (Wild Carob-tree). " It may," says the old 

 herbalist, " be called in English Judas-tree, for that it is thought 



