422 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



the kind mother-goddess is sometimes personified as 

 an apple-tree. But oftener the apple is the tempter 

 in Northern mythology also, and sometimes makes 

 the nose grow so that the pear "alone can bring it 

 again to moderate size." 1 



The association of the temptation of Eve with the 

 apple is traditional, and not scriptural. The concep- 

 tion of a divinely-endowed tree guarded by a serpent 

 makes its appearance in the myths of many ancient 

 races. 2 In Russia the vine is sometimes represented 

 as the Tree of Knowledge. In India it is also a 

 climbing plant, the soma {Sarcostemma viminale), 

 which is identical with the homa of the Persians. He 

 who drinks of its juice never dies. Some authors 

 have identified it with the " Tree of Life which grew 

 in Paradise." 



The sanctity of the oak has a remote antiquity. 

 From the oracular oak of Dodona to the sacred oaks 

 of the Druids it was held profoundly sacred. " The 

 tree under which Abraham was said to have received 

 his heavenly visitors, the " oak of mourning " under 

 which Deborah was buried, the oak under which 

 Jacob hid the idols at Shechem — the same probably 

 with that near the sanctuary under which Joshua 



1 " Mystic Trees and Flowers " in " Eraser's Magazine,'' 

 Nov., 1870, p. 590. 

 8 See "Tree and Serpent Worship," by W. Ferguson, F.R.S. 



