May 3^. 1883] 



NA TURE 



"3 



preserved that under the influence of boiling water the 

 spur of the posterior sepal is easily separated from that of 

 the petal projecting into it. That is to say, the latter may 

 be extracted without injury. The numerous details of the 

 petal, its intricate venation, the coloured glands on the 

 margins, the claw with two lateral folds — all correspond to 

 recent specimens. The colour of the ancient flowers is 

 rather a deep bluish violet than a reddish violet, as in the 

 plint of our time. 



I have also carefully analysed the flowers of Sesbania 



■ tegypiiaca, from the wreaths of Aahmes I. They belong 

 to the typical form of the shrub, which still springs up on 

 the borders of cultivated fields and on roadsides in Egypt, 

 though it is not really spontaneous below the Soudan. 

 The flowers are so perfectly preserved that the minutest 

 detail did not escape my scrutiny. Submitted to the 

 action of boiling water they scarcely differed from flowers 

 taken from my herbarium. One circumstance shows how 

 hurriedly these funeral wreaths were made. The flower 

 torn from its pedicel and pinched with the finger nails 

 always retains only a part of the calyx cut through the 

 middle. 



In the find at Deir-el Bahari other objects besides the 

 wreaths were found for the first time. Thus in the coffin 

 of the priest Nibsoni, of the twentieth dynasty, the leaves 

 of Citrullits vulgaris were scattered between the body of 

 the mummy and the sides of the coffin ; and flowers of 



■ \ymphaa caerulea were found fixed beneath the outer 

 bandages of the same munmy. The Egyptian Museum 

 of Berlin already possessed seeds of this Citrullus in the 

 collection of Passalacqua, though the epoch to which the 

 collection belongs is unknown. Citrullus vulgaris is 

 found wild in the greater part of Central Africa, 1 and its 

 fruit is smaller than that of the cultivated race, and less 

 palatable, though otherwise like it. Among the broken 

 remains in question I found one whole leaf, which enabled 

 me to fully study its specific characters. Placed in cold 

 water it recovered its original flexibility, so thtt it could 

 be spread out flat and dried again. The chlorophyll was 

 perfectly preserved, and what was curious, it was absorbed 

 by the water to such a degree, that the glass of water in 

 which the leafand portions of leives were placed became of 

 an intense green colour. The problem to solve was whether 

 the leaves were those of the water-melon or those of the 

 colocynth, a species spreid over the whole desert region, 

 and only differing from the former, which has long hairs 

 on the young fruit, by the complete nudity and spongy 

 nature of its bitter fruit with a hard rind, and by the 

 seeds. The leaves of the water-melon o' ten very closely 

 rese nble those of the colocynth, especially in the variety 

 called Gjurma (Gyunna) in Egypt, which bears fruit no 

 larger than that of the colocynth, though it is always 

 sveet. Nevertheless the large leaves of el>ng \ ted outline 

 and having less numerous lobes, are rare in the colocynth, 

 and only in places well watered by rains. There is an 

 association of characters in the leaves from the mummy 

 of Nibsoni, that enable one to refer them to varieties of 

 the cultivated water-melon, rather than to the wild 

 colocynth. I have compared them with a long series of 

 specimens of the water-melon from all parts of the Nilotic 

 region, and with a no less numerous series of specimens 

 of the colocynth ; and I have come to the conclusion that 

 they may be regarded as belonging to the former species. 

 The uses of the two species would render them equally 

 admissible in a coffin of ancient Egypt. As a funeral offer- 

 ing an alimentary plant might serve as well as a medicinal 

 one. Still the fact that there are seeds of the water-melon 

 in the Berlin Museum from an ancient tomb supports my 

 first supposition. The leaves found on Nibsoni are about 

 a palm long, and of a pinnatisect form, with obtuse lobes. 

 If these leaves were distinctly hairy there would be no 

 doubt of their belonging to the water-melon. Yet, as 

 already mentioned, there is a variety widely spread in 



1 I have gathered it in that state in the islands of the White Nile. 



Egypt which has not the long and numerous hairs at- 

 tached to the tubercles with which the leaves are covered, 

 but merely short bristles, which is also the case in the 

 colocynth. 



This variety of water melon, which I have named colo- 

 cynihoides, is the Gyunna of the Egyptians, and is culti- 

 vated in dry neglected ground in Upper Egypt. It is 

 probably the primitive condition of the species before it 

 had reached its present state of perfection. The leaves 

 of the Gyunna are sometimes hairy, as in the water- 

 melon, sometimes only provided with short deciduous 

 bristles, as in the colocynth. The leaves from the coffin 

 of Nibsoni exhibit only the latter condition. It may he 

 that they have lo = t a great part of these deciduous hairs 

 during the long period that has elapsed. I found one 

 character, however, that the Gyunna has in common 

 with those in question. There are on the petiole, and 

 especially on the under surface of the leaf in the middle, 

 among the round tubercles with which it is beset, 

 other tubercles or callosities of an elongated linear form 

 and arranged in rows corresponding to the secondary 

 veins. On these leaves, as well as on those of the 

 Gyunna, these elongated tubercles are much more 

 prominent than they are in the colocynth. Moreover the 

 numerous specimens that I have compared of the last 

 have all of them leaves more densely furnished with the 

 round tubercles than is the case with those of the water- 

 melon, of the Gyunna, and the ancient leaves. 



The secret vault of Deir-el-Bahari, besides the coffins 

 of so many illustrious kings, also contained numerous 

 funeral offerings deposited there by the later kings of the 

 twenty-first dynasty who used this collective tomb, so well 

 concealed by the topographical conditions. Among these 

 offerings I was able to recognise dates, raisins, and 

 pomegranates. There was also a basket filled with a 

 lichen (Pannelia furfuracea, Ach.) which at the present 

 day is sold in the bazaar of drugs in every town of Egypt. 

 It is now called " Che-bt " (Sheba), and is used to leaven 

 and flavour the Arabian bread. Medicinally, also, it is 

 in great request. The presence of a lichen of solely 

 Greek origin, mixed with the species named, and which 

 also occurs in the modern drug, excludes all doubt as to 

 its being a commercial product. Ramalina Grxca, Muell., 

 Arg., which was mixed with the Pannelia, has only been 

 found in the islands of the Greek Archipelago, and the 

 Arab merchants regard that country as the source of their 

 drug. As there is no locality in Egypt where Parmelia 

 furfuracea could grow, the only explanation of its presence 

 in the offerings of the twenty-first dynasty (iooo B.C.) is 

 that it was derived from Abyssinia or Greece. In the 

 latter case the find at Deir-el-Bahari would prove the 

 existence of commercial intercourse with Greece at about 

 the time of the Trojan war. Among the Pannelia (which 

 was perhaps the Sphagnos of Pliny) were fragments of 

 Usnea plicata, 1 Hoffmg, and the straw of a grass (Gy»i- 

 nanthelis lonigera, Anders.) of Nubia, which at the 

 present day is used by the natives as a remedy against 

 affections of the chest and stomach. On searching 

 through the copious remains of this plant I succeeded in 

 finding a few well-preserved flower-spikes, which I care- 

 fully examined and determined beyond doubt to belong 

 to the species mentioned. In Arabic it is called 

 " mdhareb." The odour even of this grass was preserved 

 to a certain extent in the mixture of the offering. The 

 fragrant secretion is of the same nature as that of 

 the allied section Schanianthus of Andropogon of India. 

 Besides the lichens and the grass, this offering contained 

 the hairy buds of some Composita, probably an Artemisia, 

 with pinnatisect leaves; tendrils of some Cucurbitacea ; 

 seeds of the coriander ; and numerous berries and seeds 

 of the eastern Juniper (fun/penis Phasnecia). Inasmuch 

 as we have here to do with plants coming from oppo- 

 site regions of Africa and from Europe or Asia, it was 



1 Dr. J. Mueller of Geneva o 



