IX 

 BIBLE PLANTS IN CALIFORNIA 



IN its physiography, California is Palestine mul- 

 tiplied by sixteen. Both are relatively long and 

 narrow, extending north and south, with lofty moun- 

 tains and with depressions that drop in some cases 

 below sea level. In each there is a fertile coast 

 country bordering a western sea, upon which the 

 mountains look down. The inland valley of the 

 Jordan has its counterpart in California's greater 

 valley of the San Joaquin, and the sink of the Dead 

 Sea is paralleled in a way by our terrible Death 

 Valley. Deserts to the south and east hem both 

 lands in. So, too, in climate, California's dry sum- 

 mer and more or less rainy winter, are repeated in 

 Palestine; and according to Mr. Aaron Aaronsohn, 

 Palestine's most famous botanist, the flora of the 

 Holy Land approximates the same number of spe- 

 cies as that of the Golden State about three thou- 

 sand. " There are many other points of similar- 

 ity," to quote the words of this authority, 1 "between 



i "Agricultural and Botanical Explorations in Palestine," Washing- 

 ton D. C., 1910. 



