JUNIPER BUSH. 197 



" Discc ct odordtum stabulis accendere cedrum ;" 



Georgic iii. 



" Learn also to burn the odorous cedar in your folds." 



MARTVN'S Translation. 



Whatever the Cedar of Virgil may have been, it was 

 certainly not the Cedar of Lebanon, and as certainly is 

 understood to have been a species of Juniper. May 

 translates this passage 



" But learn to burn within your sheltering rooms 

 Sweet Juniper." 



The smoke of Cedar was supposed by the Romans to 

 drive away serpents. 



Theophrastus describes a Cedar as growing in Syria, 

 so large that three men could not encompass one : this 

 is generally understood to mean the Phoenician Cedar, 

 since he describes it as bearing a berry, not a cone*. 



The virtues of some species of the Juniper are very 

 considerable, more particularly of the common Juniper : 

 sugar may be obtained from the berries; the Swedes 

 prepare a beer from them ; and the Laplanders use a 

 decoction of them as we use tea or coffee. A wine is 

 prepared from them also, called Juniper wine ; and they 

 are in many cases found efficacious in medicinal pre- 

 parations, as also are the young shoots, and the wood. 



The Savin and the Lycian Juniper are also useful in 

 medicine. 



Martyn says that the gum-resin, called Olibanum, is 

 supposed to be the incense formerly used by the ancients 

 in their religious ceremonies, though not the substance 

 known by that name in the shops. It is much em- 



* See Martyn's Virgil, p. 202. 



