BOTANY. 369 



and beer. This is considered essential to the process of 

 brewing, and it communicates an agreeable taste to the 

 liquor. Upon examining this herb, Forskal found it to be a 

 lichen of the plum-tree, of which several ship-loads were then 

 annually imported from the Archipelago into Alexandria. 

 Among the new genera discovered by the Danish botanist, 

 several were distinguished for their curious properties. The 

 Polycephalus suaveolens, which resembles the thistle, has at a 

 distance the appearance of a heap of loose balls each of 

 which encloses a bunch of flowers. The Ncrmm obesum, a 

 sort of laurel-rose, is remarkable for a singular bulb close to 

 the earth about the size of a man's head, which forms all its 

 trunk, and out of which the branches spring. The Volutella 

 ayhylla {Cassyta Jiliformis, Linn.) appears like a long slen- 

 der thread, without root or leaves, which entwines itself about 

 trees. It bears, however, a sort of flower, and berries which 

 are eaten by children. The caydbcja (called Forskalea by 

 Linnaeus, in honour of its discoverer) grows in the driest parts 

 of the country. It has small feelers, with which it fixes 

 itself so tenaciously upon soft or smooth substances, that it 

 must be torn in pieces before it can be removed. 



Arundinaceous plants are necessarily limited to certain 

 districts. In most parts of Yemen, a sort of panick-grass or 

 bulrush {Panicum and Scirpus, Linn.) is used in roofing 

 houses ; and as rains are not frequent, these slender cover- 

 ings are found to be sufficient. There is a particular sort of 

 rush on the borders of the Red Sea, of which the natives 

 work carpets so fine that they are exported to other countries, 

 even as far as Constantinople, and foma a considerable branch 

 of trade. There is also a species of field-reed, which rises 

 to the gigantic height of twenty-four feet, and is found in 

 great abundance in the district of Ghobebe, near Suez. It is 

 an article of commerce, being exported to Yemen, where it 

 is used in the ceiling of houses. In the same neighbourhood 

 Niebuhr was surprised to see a Conferva growing at the bot- 

 tom of the Hammam Faraoun, the temperature of which was 

 at 1421 '^ of Fahrenheit's scale. That the sugar-cane was 

 from a very early period cultivated in Yemen has been already 

 noticed.* When the Arabs conquered Spain and the Medi- 



Pliny mentions it. " Saccharon et Arabia fert, sed lauda- 

 tins India." Lib. xii. cap. 17. 



