]38 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. [^(^V, 



Much has been written about the signification of the parable 

 of the kingdom of God being Hke a grain of mustard-seed^ 

 which is said to be the least of all seeds^ yet it becometh a tree^' 

 and the fowls lodge on and under its branches. There are plants 

 which have smaller seeds than the Mustard^ and there are larger 

 trees than the Mustard-plant. Much erudition and speculation 

 have been thrown away on this subject^ and attempts to reconcile 

 the teaching of Holy Scripture with botanical facts have been as 

 little satisfactory as the attempted reconcilement of revelation 

 and science in astronomy and geology. 



Mangles and Irby, in their travels^ saw a shrubby or arbores- 

 cent plant which had some acrid properties like Mustard, and our 

 expositors, or some of them, accept this as a godsend to save them 

 from the difficulty of receiving as a tree what is truly an herbaceous 

 plant. Others maintain that the Mustard-plant of Scripture is 

 an Asclepias ; although the genuine Mustard, Sinapis orientalis, 

 is admitted to be plentiful in Syria, and it is also considered to 

 be specifically identical with S. niyra. Dr. Kitto says, S. arvensis ; 

 but the Doctor probably was not a botanist.^ 



The Virginian Pokef [Phytolacca decandra) has also been 

 pressed into the service of sacred hermeneutics, but very unfor- 

 tunately, for the latter is a plant of the Occidental, not of the 

 Oriental, hemisphere. 



The mustard-seeds are indeed a stumbling-block to those who 

 seek botanical and geological truth in their Bibles, where the 

 truths of Redemption and Salvation only are professedly given ; 

 but the stature of the Mustard plant or tree need be no bar to 

 rational belief. 



Several examples of the common Charlock, Sinapis arvensis, 

 have been seen in very rich soil, for example, in the Essex marshes 

 near Southend, upwards of two yards in height and of a corre- 

 sponding extent of branches and thickness of stem. Many of 

 the feathered tribes resorted to them for food, and probably for 

 shelter also. We know that the reed-warblers build their nests on 



* Dr. Kitto enters, besides Sinapis arvensis, S. alba and S. halepensis, together 

 ■with Erysimum officinale, Draha verna, Lepidium perfoliatum, L. saiivum, and L. 

 latifolium, Woad, Fliiweed, Dame's Yiolet, Eadish, Stocks, and Nasturtium offi- 

 cinale, among the plants of the Holy Land. 



t Harris, m liis 'Dictionary of the Natural History of the Bible,' says that 

 Phytolacca doclecandra, or KoJckon sinapeos, is the Mustard of the parable. 



