80 LETTER XXXIII. 



tuft of hairs {fig. B.), doubtless intended to enable the 

 seed to ride on the wind, and to be transported from 

 place to place ; in the French Tamarisk this provision 

 exists only in a very rudimentary state. In the inside 

 of the seed lies an embryo with two cotyledons, and no 

 albumen {fig C). 



What renders the French Tamarisk still more in- 

 teresting than its graceful form, is the belief that it 

 was from this plant, or a local variety of it, that the 

 manna fell, on which the Israelites subsisted during 

 their sojourn of forty years in the deserts of Arabia. 

 The celebrated Professor Ehrenberg gathered manna 

 with his own hands from the Tamarisks of the wilder- 

 ness of Sinai, and it is certain that the species grows 

 plentifully in all the countries adjacent to the Red Sea. 

 That manna did fall from the Tamarisk, is rendered 

 more probable by the fact that this substance is at 

 the present day produced by only two plants in the 

 East, one the Tamarisk, the other the Comers Thorn 

 (Alhagi Maurorum) ; but as the manna of the Mosaic 

 history is said to have fallen from heaven, that is, from 

 some height, it could scarcely have been produced by 

 the Camel's Thorn, which is only a low bush, while it 

 might easily have dropped from the Tamarisk, which 

 becomes a tree. It is, moreover, not a little curious 

 that the Tamarisk manna is very different in its effects 

 from the bitter sweet manna of the druggists' shops, 

 which is sometimes given to infants as medicine ; 

 Tamarisk manna is stated by the chemists, who have 

 examined it, to consist of pure mucilaginous sugar, 

 one of the most nutritious of known substances. 



