PLANTS IX SCRIPTURE 141 



Dioscorides, men used to eat raw or boiled, in the 

 manner of asparagus. 



And, therefore, this expression doth highly declare 

 the misery, poverty, and extremity, of the persons 

 who were now mockers of him ; they being so con- 

 temptible and necessitous, that they were fain to be 

 content, not with a mean diet, but such as was no diet 

 at all, the roots of trees, the roots of juniper, which 

 none would make use of for food, but in the lowest 

 necessity, and some degree of famishing. 



41. While you read in Theophrastus or modern 

 herbalists, a strict division of plants, into arbor, frutex, 

 suffrutex et herba, you cannot but take notice of the 

 Scriptural division at the creation, into tree and herb ; 

 and this may seem too narrow to comprehend the 

 class of vegetables ; which, notwithstanding, may be 

 sufficient, and a plain and intelligible division thereof. 

 And therefore, in this difficulty concerning the division 

 of plants, the learned botanist, Csesalpinus, thus con- 

 cludeth, clarius agemus si altera divisione neglect a, duo 

 tantum plantarum genera substituamus, arborem scilicet, et 

 herbam, conjungentes cum arboribus frueticcs , et cum herba 

 suffrutices ; frutices being the lesser trees, and suffrutices 

 the larger, harder, and more solid herbs. 



