270 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



main six or ten minutes, in wliich time tliey 

 will have lost their milky whiteness, and ac- 

 quired a transparency like horn, without any 

 diminution of bulk. Being arrived at this state, 

 they are to be removed, in order to dry and 

 harden in the air, which will require several days 

 to effect ; or by using a very gentle heat, they 

 may be finished in a few hours. The Turkey 

 salep comes to this country in oval masses, 

 hard, and semi-transparent, of a yellowish white 

 colour. 



Salep has been lauded as containing a greater 

 quantity of nourishment, in a given bulk, than 

 any other vegetable body ; we suspect, however, 

 that in this respect it must yield to good wheaten 

 bread. It has been said, however, that an ounce 

 of powdered salep, mixed with an ounce of ani- 

 mal jelly or portable soup, and boUed in two 

 quarts of water, will be sufficient for the daily 

 food of an able-bodied man. It has accordingly 

 been recommended as a part of ships' stores on a 

 long voyage. A small quantity of salep added 

 to milk retards the latter from becoming sour. 

 The late Dr Percival of Manchester proposes this 

 substance as a mixture in wheaten bread. I di- 

 rected, sa3's he, an ounce of the powder to be dis- 

 solved in a quart of water, and the mucilag'e to 

 be mixed with a sufficient quantity of flour, salt, 

 and yeast. The flour amounted to two pounds, 

 the yeast to two ounces, and the salt to eighty 

 grains. The loaf when baked was remarkably 

 well fermented, and weighed three pounds twelve 

 ounces. Half a pound of flour and an ounce of 

 salep were mixed together, and the water added 

 according to the usual method of preparing bread. 

 The loaf when baked weighed thirteen ounces 

 and a half; but it should be remarked that the 

 quantity of flour used in this trial was not suffi- 

 cient to conceal the peculiar taste of the salep. 



Salep was at one time in considerable esteem 

 as a medicine. It is now never used by medical 

 men but as an article of diet for invalids, when a 

 light nutritious vegetable food is advisable. 



The Eoyptian Watek Lily (nymphea lotus). 

 This plant grows in vast quantities in the plains 

 of Lower Egypt, near Cairo, during the time the 

 land is under water. It flowers about the mid- 

 dle of September, and ripens towards the latter 

 end of October. The Arabians call it nuphar. 

 The sacred lotus of Egypt has given rise to much 

 controversy among the learned. In fact it ap- 

 pears that several plants were called by this name 

 by the inliabitants of different parts of the coun- 

 try. According to Shaw, in the plate that re- 

 presents the mosaic pavement at Prseneste, re- 

 lating to some of the plants and animals of Egypt 

 and Ethiopia, the lotus of these countries is un- 

 questionably a water lily, of which three kinds 

 are mentioned by Des Fontaines, and represented 

 on many Egyptian monuments. Two of them, 

 lie says, have been well described in the works 



of Herodotus and Theophrastus ; one has white 

 flowers and fruit like that of a poppy, fuU of a 

 great number of small seeds ; this is the nymphea 

 lotus of Linnffius. The other,- called by Herodo- 

 tus the lily rose of the Nile, and by Theophras- 

 tus the Egyptian bean, or lotus of Antinoiis, has 

 a flower of a lovely red, and a fi-uit shaped like 

 the rose of a watering-pot, pitted with deep hol- 

 lows, each containing an oblong seed as large as 

 a small filbert ; this is the nymphea nelumbo of 

 Linnaeus, the cyannus nelumbo of Sir J. E. Smith, 

 and according to him, the kuamos of the ancients, 

 which has been confounded by other able writers 

 with the true lotus of Egypt, and has probably 

 become important in the Egyptian mythology 

 only as a substitute for the former. This fruit, 

 compared by Theophrastus to a wasp's nest, is 

 represented in various Egyptian monuments. 

 See the nympliea lottis, plate VII., fig. 7. The 

 red-flowered lotus is common in India, but has 

 disappeared in Egypt. The third species has 

 blue flowers, and a fruit like the first; it is like- 

 wise delineated on the monuments of antiquity, 

 and has been noticed by Athenseus. This au- 

 thor says, that at Alexandria the crowns worn at 

 the festivals of Antinoiis were composed of the 

 red or the blue lotus. Dehle observed the blue 

 water \\\y lotus in Egypt, and has described it 

 under the name of nymphea cerulea. 



Sevei'al other plants deserving notice belong 

 to this division of the vegetable kingdom ; but 

 as they come under the heads of medicinal or 

 ornamental plants, we shall recur to them undtr 

 those heads. Of such are the aloes, the various 

 kinds of lilies, &c. The pine apple we shall 

 also describe among the other fi-uits. 



CHAP. XXX. 



mVISlON III, DICOTYLEDONOUS TLANTS. — THE 

 POTATO, &C. 



We now come to the third great division of 

 the vegetable kingdom, where the seeds of all 

 the plants are found to be divided into two lobes 

 or cotyledons; a familiar example of which we 

 have in the common bean, or in the seed of the 

 oak or elm. There is but one exception to this 

 general character, and that is in the family of 

 the pines, or coniferse, whose seeds consist of 

 from three to ten different parts, or verticellate 

 cotyledons. 



Dicotyledonous plants, as we have already' 

 explained, are characterised from the members 

 of the two other divisions, by the internal or- 

 ganization of their stem, (Chap. VI.) of which 

 all the parts are disposed in concentric layers; 

 the disposition and mode of branching of the 

 nerves of the leaves; the circumstance of five or 



