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NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



ders of the Gaza desert, in Arabia's wilderness of sands, on 

 the roofs of houses and among rubbish in Syria, abundant 

 specimens are to be met with. But, like many other things 

 of insignificant exterior, few pause to look upon or handle 

 this wayside shrub, which nevertheless carries with it a les- 

 son and a moral. 



3. By the laws of germination, there are, we are 

 told, these three things necessary for a plant — humidity, 



heat, and oxy- 



genized air. The 

 first of them is 

 indispensable, in- 

 asmuch as with- 

 out it the grain 

 or seed would 

 not swell, and, 

 without swelling, 

 could not burst 

 its shell or skin; 

 and heat, in union 

 with water, brings 

 various gases to young plants 

 — especially oxygen — which 

 are necessary for their ex- 

 istence. 



4. With these facts be- 

 fore us, and a knowledge that rain seldom falls in most 

 places where the rose of Jericho thrives, how are we to 

 account for the extraordinary circumstance of this plant 

 being periodically abundant and flowering at precisely the 

 same season year after year, when, by the acknowledged 

 laws of germination, there has been that succor wanting 

 which is indispensable to propagate vegetation ? Now ap- 

 pears the most remarkable and most direct interposition 

 of Nature for her offspring — an interposition little short 



The Rose of Jericho. 

 The dead plant and a leafy branch. 



