120 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 



5. Whether the bush which burnt and consumed 

 not, were properly a rubus or bramble, was somewhat 

 doubtful from the original and some translations, had 

 not the Evangelist, and St. Paul expressed the same 

 by the Greek word, /?citos, which, from the descrip- 

 tion of Dioscorides, herbalists accept for rubus : 

 although the same word ySaros expresseth not only 

 the rubus or kinds of bramble, but other thorny bushes, 

 and the hip-brier is also named KuvotrySaTos, or the 

 dog-brier or bramble. 



6. That myrlca is rendered heath, 1 sounds in- 

 structively enough to our ears, who behold that plant 

 so common in barren plains among us : but you cannot 

 but take notice that erica, or our heath, is not the same 

 plant with myrica or tamarice, described by Theo- 

 phrastus and Dioscorides, and which Bellonius declareth 

 to grow so plentifully in the deserts of Judaea and 

 Arabia. 



7. That the /3ot/3vs rr}<; KVKpov, botrus cypri, 1 or 

 clusters of cypress, should have any reference to the 

 cypress tree, according to the original, copier, or clusters 

 of the noble vine of Cyprus, which might be planted 

 into Judaea, may seem to others allowable in some 

 latitude. But there seeming some noble odour to be 



1 Cant. i. 14. 



