PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 1+7 



Emanuel de Sa interprets it plantas semini noxias, and 

 so accordingly some others. 



Buxtorfius, in his Rabbinical Lexicon, gives divers 

 interpretations, sometimes for degenerated corn, some- 

 times for the black seeds in wheat, but withal concludes, 

 an hac sit eadem vox aut species cum zizanid apud 

 evangelistam, quxrant alii. But lexicons and dictionaries 

 by zizania do almost generally understand folium, which 

 we call darnel, and commonly confine the signification 

 to that plant- Notwithstanding, since lolium had a 

 known and received name in Greek, some may be apt 

 to doubt why, if that plant were particularly intended, 

 the proper Greek word was not used in the text. 

 For Theophrastus l named lolium cupa, and hath often 

 mentioned that plant ; and in one place saith, that corn 

 doth sometimes loliescere or degenerate into darnel. 

 Dioscorides, who travelled over Judaea, gives it the 

 same name, which is also to be found in Galen, iEtius, 

 and jEgineta ; and Pliny hath sometimes Latinized 

 that word into <era. 



Besides, lolium or darnel shows itself in the winter, 



growing up with the wheat ; and Theophrastu* 



observed, that it was no vernal plant, but came up 



in the winter ; which will not well answer the ex- 



1 Hut. Plant., lib. viii. 



