HERODOTUS AS A BOTANIST. 101 



The Tamarisk. 



fjivpLKT] {Myrica TjCtt.), 



The tamarisk, a shrub of common occurreuce in the desert, 

 as also on the shores of the Mediterranean, is referred to by 

 Herodotus. Lib. II, 96, in his description of Egyptian boats 

 on the Nile. Down stream, he says, they are managed as 

 follows : There is a craft belonging to each made of the wood 

 of the tamarisk, fastened together with a wattle of reeds, and 

 also a stone bored through the middle, about two talents in 

 weight. In a footnote appended to this chapter Rawlinson 

 informs us that the tamarisk raft before the head of the boat 

 is dispensed with by modern Egyptian boatmen, but tliat 

 they make use of the stone in coming down the stream, to 

 impede the boat, which is done by suspending it from the 

 stern. When the rowers are tired and boats are allowed to 

 float down, they turn broadside to the stream, and it was 

 to prevent this that the stone and tamarisk raft were applied. 

 The Professor in another work (vol. i of his Ancient Egypt) 

 gives another use to which the tamarisk is applied, inasmuch 

 as he includes it in a list of medicinal plants. In traversing 

 the Suez Canal the tamarisk (Tamarix macrocarpa) was a 

 most familiar and frequently recurring shrub. 



Thus in IJ Orient, p. 16, the following notices of it occur: — 



" The only shrub to be seen on either hand is dwarf tamarisk, some- 

 times consisting of a mere fringe, and anon widening into an extensive 

 low growing scrub, like a furze common." 



" The clumps of tamarisk in the distance resemble small islets in a lake, 

 owing to the mirage occasioned by the heat." 



And again, p. 19 : 



" Endless slight undulations and sandy ridges clothed with clumps of 

 tamarisk in blossom, and other shrubs gray-green in tint and with prickly 

 stems." 



" These clumps of tamarisk, etc., often surround conical mounds of 

 sand, where it has been silted up by the winds in the middle. The mud 

 bank on the east side is now covered with a continuous belt of tall flags, 

 and the tamarisk, of course, interspersed as before." 



My own specimens of Tamarix macrocarpa were gathered 

 in the desert close to El Ferdane on the Suez Canal 33 

 miles south of Port Said. Though occurring frequently at 

 our own seaside resorts, it is only naturalised and not a 

 native of the English coast. It is somewhat remarkable 

 that a well known shrub growing abundantly on our moors 



