452 
NATURE 
[Sepz. 9, 1886 
British flora, that unhappily for science was never published, 
though it still exists in manuscript. Other collections of British 
plants of the same age, but less complete, supplement those of 
Buddle: these various materials are in such a state of preserya- 
tion as to permit of the most careful comparison with living 
plants, and they show that the two centuries which have elapsed 
since their collection have not modified in any particular the 
species contained in them. The early collectors contemplated 
merely the preservation of a single specimen of each species ; 
consequently the data for an exhaustive comparison of the 
indigenous flora of Britain at the beginning of last century with 
that of the present are very imperfect as compared with those 
which we shall hand down to our successors for their use. 
The collections made in other regions of the world in the 
seventeenth century, and included in the extensive herbarium of 
Sir Hans Sloane, are frequently being examined side by side 
with plants of our own day, but they do not show any peculiari- 
ties that distinguish them from recent collections. If any 
changes are taking place in plants, it is certain that the 300 
years during which their dried remains have been preserved in 
herbaria have been too short to exhibit them. 
Beyond the time of those early herbaria the materials which 
we owe in any way to the intervention of man have been pre- 
served without any regard to their scientific interest. They con- 
sist mainly of materials used in building or for sepulture. The 
woods employed in medizyal buildings present no peculiarities 
by which they can be distinguished from existing woods ; neither 
do the woods met with in Roman and British villages and 
burying-places. From a large series collected by General Pitt- 
Rivers in extensive explorations carried on by him on the site of 
a village which had been occupied by the British before and 
after the appearance of the Romans, we find that the woods 
chiefly used by them were oak, birch, hazel, and willow, and 
at the latter period of occupation of the village the wood of the 
Spanish chestnut (Castanca vulgaris, Lamk.) was so extensively 
employed that it must have been introduced and grown in the 
district. The gravel beds in the north of London, explored by 
Mr. W. G. Smith for the palzeolithic implements in them, con- 
tained also fragments of willow and birch, and the rhizomes of 
Osmunda regalis, L. 
The most important materials, however, for the comparison 
of former vegetation of a known age with that of our own day 
have been supplied by the specimens which have been obtained 
from the tombs of the ancient Egyptians. Until recently these 
consisted mainly of fruits and seeds. These were all more or 
less carbonised, because the former rifling of the tombs had 
exposed them to the air, Ehrenberg, who accompanied Von 
Minutoli in his Egyptian expedition, determined the seeds 
which he had collected; but as he himself doubted the antiquity 
of some of the materials on which he reported, the scientific 
value of his enumeration is destroyed. Passalacqua in 1823 
made considerable collections from tombs at Thebes, and these 
were carefully examined and described by the distinguished 
botanist Kunth. He pointed out, in a paper published sixty 
years ago, that these ancient seeds possessed the minute and 
apparently accidental peculiarities of their existing representa- 
tives. Unger, who visited Egypt, published in several papers 
identifications of the plant-remains from the tombs ; and one of 
the latest labours of Alexander Braun was an examination of 
the vegetable remains in the Egyptian Museum at Berlin, which 
was published, afer his death, from his manuscript, under the 
careful editorship of Ascherson and Magnus. In this, twenty- 
four species were determined, some from imperfect materials, 
and necessarily with some hesitation as to the accuracy of their 
determination. 
The recent exploration of unopened tombs belonging to an 
early period in the history of the Egyptian people has permitted 
the examination of the plants in a condition which could not 
have been anticipated. And happily, the examination of these 
materials has been made by a botanist who is thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the existing flora of Egypt, for Dr. Schweinfurth 
has for a quarter of a century been exploring the plants of the 
Nile valley. The plant-remains were included within the 
mummy-wrappings, and, being thus hermetically sealed, haye 
been preserved with scarcely any change. By placing the plants 
In warm water, Dr. Schweinfurth has succeeded in preparing a 
series of specimens gathered 4000 years ago, which are as satis- 
factory for the purposes of science as any collected at the present 
day. These specin:ens consequently supply means for the closest 
examination and comparison with their living representatives. 
The colours of the flowers are still present, even the most 
evanescent, such as the violet of the larkspur and knapweed, 
and the scarlet of the poppy; the chlorophyll remains in the 
leaves, and the sugar in the pulp of the raisins. Dr. Schwein- 
furth has determined no less than fifty-nine species, some of 
which are represented by the fruits employed as offerings to the 
dead, others by the flowers and leaves made into garlands, and 
the remainder by branches on which the body was placed, and 
which were inclosed within the wrappings. 
[The following is a list of the species of ancient Egyptian 
plants determined by Dr. Schweinfurth; I am indebted to Dr. 
Schweinfurth for some species in this list, the discovery of which 
he has not yet published :—Delphinium orientale, Gay ; Coccu- 
lus Leaba, DC. ; Nymphaea caerulea, Sav.; Nymphea Lotus, 
Hook. ; Papaver Rheas, L. ; Sinapis arvensis, L., var. Allionii, 
Jacq. ; Merua uniflora, Vahl. ; Oncoba spinosa, Forsk. ; 
Tamarix nilotica, Ehrb. ; Alcea ficifolia, L.; Linum humile, 
Mill. ; Balanites egyptiaca, Del. ; Vitis vinifera, L. ; Moringa 
aptera, Gertn. ; Medicago denticulata, Willd. ; Sesbania egy pti- 
aca, Pers. ; Haba vulgaris, Moench; Lens esculenta, Mcench ; 
Lathyrus sativus, L.; Cajanus indicus, L.; Acacia nilotica, 
Del. ; Lawsonia inermis, Lamk. ; Punica Granatum, L. ; Epi- 
lobium hirsutum, L. ; Lagenaria vulgaris, Ser. ; Citrullus vud- 
garts, Schrad., var. colocynthoides, Schweinf. ; Apium graveolens, 
L. 3 Coriandrum sativum, L.; Ceruana pratensis, Forsk. ; 
Spheranthus suaveolens, DC.; Chrysanthemum coronarium, 
L. ; Centaurea depressa, M. Bieb. ; Carthamus tin:torius, L.-; 
Picris coronopifolia, Asch. ; Mimusops Schimpert, Hochst. ; 
Fasminum Sambac, L.; Olea europea, L.; Mentha piperita, 
L. ; Reumex dentatus, L. ; Ficus Sycomorus, L. ; Ficus Carica, 
L. ; Salix Safsaf, Forsk.; Funiperus phanicea, L.; Pinus 
Pinea, L.; Allium sativum, L. ; Allium Cepa, L. ; Phenix 
dactylifera, L. ; Calamus fasciculatus, Roxb. ; Hyphene the- 
baica, Mart. ; Medemia Argun, P. G. von Wiirtemb, ; Cyperus 
Papyrus, L.; Cyperus esculentus, L. ; Andropogon laniger, 
Desf. ; Lefplochloa bipinnata, Retz. ; Triticum vulgare, L. ; 
Hordeum vulgare, L. ; Parmelia furfuracea, Ach. ; Usnea pli- 
cata, Hoffm.] 
The votive offerings consist of the fruits, seeds, or stems, of 
twenty-nine species of plants. Three palm fruits are common : 
the Medemia Argun, Wiut., of the Nubian Desert, and the 
LHyphene thebaica, Mart., of Upper Egypt, agreeing exactly with 
the fruits of these plants in our own day ; also dates of different 
forms resembling exactly the varieties of dried dates found now 
in the markets of Egypt. Two figs are met with, /%cus Carica, 
L., and Ficus Sycomorus, L., the latter exhibiting the incisions 
still employed by the inhabitants for the destruction of the 
Neuropterous insects which feed on them. The sycamore was 
one of the sacred trees of Egypt, and the branches used for the 
bier of a mummy found at Abd-el-Qurna, of the twentieth 
dynasty (a thousand years before the Christian era), were moistened 
and laid out by Dr. Schweinfurth, equalling, he says, the best 
specimen of this plant in our herbaria, and consequently per- 
mitting the most exact comparison with living sycamores, from 
which they differ in no respect. The fruit of the vine is com- 
mon, and presents, besides some forms familiar to the modern 
grower, others which have been lost to cultivation. The leaves 
which have been obtained entire exactly agree in form with those 
cultivated at the present day, but the under surface is clothed 
with white hairs, a peculiarity Dr. Schweinfurth has not ob- 
served in any Egyptian vines of our time. A very large quantity 
of linseed was found in a tomb at Thebes of the twentieth 
dynasty, now 3000 years old, and a smaller quantity in a vase 
in another tomb of the twelfth dynasty, that is, 1000 years older. 
This belongs certainly to Zimum humile, Mill., the species still 
cultivated in Egypt, from which the capsules do not differ in 
any respect. Braun had already determined this species pre- 
served thus in the tombs, though he was not aware of its con- 
tinued cultivation in Egypt. The berries of Funiperus phenicea, 
L., are found in a perfect state of preservation, and present a 
somewhat larger average size than those obtained from this — 
juniper at the present day. Grains of barley and wheat are of 
frequent occurrence in the tombs ; M. Mariette has found barley 
in a grave at Sakhara of the fifth dynasty, 5400 years old. 
The impurities found with the seeds of these cultivated plants 
show that the weeds which trouble the tillers of the soil at the 
present day in Isgypt were equally the pests of their ancestors 
in those early ages. The barley-fields were infested with the 
same spiny medick (JZedicago denticulata, Willd.) which is still 
found in the grain crops of Egypt. ‘The presence of the pods 
Ra» 
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