292 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



'The seed of an herbaceous plant, for such is the sinapis nigra or 

 common mustard, cannot possibly produce a tree: and however 

 great a degree of altitude and circumference the stem of common 

 mustard might attain, yet it could not afford support for 'fowls of 

 the air,' even allowing it grew to the height of eight feet, which it 

 never does. 



' Mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds, as the translation im- 

 plies, because those of foxglove (digitalis purpurea),and tobacco (ni- 

 cotiana tabacum), are infinitely smaller: these are herbaceous, as well 

 as mustard (sinapis nigra) ; and even granting, for a moment, that the 

 common mustard seed was intended, the above evidence would 

 annul the validity of the translation. This discordancy has been 

 endeavored to be reconciled by a reference to sinapis erucoides r 

 or shrubby mustard; but even this has not the smallest seed; and 

 allowing, for the sake of argument, that this shrub could, by lux- 

 uriance of soil arid climate, increase in height and circumference, 

 and throw off large branches, the size of the seed would remain 

 the same, and the smallest of all seeds would not apply. 



Among other statements made, as to the size to which the mus- 

 tard plant will sometimes grow, Mr. Frost notices one writer, who 

 observes that he saw one so large that it became a great bush, and 

 was higher than the tallest man he had ever seen, and that he had 

 raised it from seed* This our author readily conceives to be true 

 but does not consider it at all explanatory of the subject, because- 

 an annual plant, such as sinapis nigra is, cannot become even a 

 shrub, much less a tree. 



Having thus endeavored to prove that the mustard seed of the 

 New Testament is not procured from sinapis nigra, or any species 

 of that genus, Mr. Frost next proceeds to show the identity that ex- 

 ists between kokkon sinapeos, and phytolaeca dodecandra which he 

 believes to be the dendron mega of the scripture. ' Phytolacca do- 

 decandra grows abundantly in Palestine ; it has the smallest seed of 

 any tree, and obtains as great, or even greater, altitude than any oth- 

 er in that country, of which it is a native. 



c Common mustard is both used for culinary and medicinal pur- 

 poses ; so are several species of phytolacca. It is rather remarka- 

 ble, that the acridity of the latter induced Linneus to place that 

 genus in the natural order Piperita3, whilst De Jussieu referred it to 

 the family Atriplices, which certainly bears out its edible and acrid 

 properties. The North Americans calls phytolacca dodecandra 

 (commonly known in our gardens by the name of American poke- 

 weed), wild mustard ; Murray, in his Apparatus Medicaminum, en- 

 ters into a long history of the excellent quality of the young shoots ; 

 but remarks, that when mature, they cannot be eaten with impuni- 

 ty. Linneus, in his Materia Medica, refers to the same circumstances. 

 Its being edible, may be inferred from the Greek term lackanon y 

 which occurs Matt. xiii. 32, and Mark iv. 32. 



' Mustard seed is applied externally, as a stimulant, in the form 

 of a sinapism ; and the foliage of phytolacca dodecandra was, used, 

 as an outward application to cancerous tumors. 



