FLORA OF PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 123 
mounts to equatorial degrees, and a flora is found resembling 
that of Lower India. More than twenty species are found 
here and around Engedi, which are not found again until we 
eross the Himalayas. 
Thus it will be seen, that while on the summit of Lebanon 
there is a plant, Oxygia reniformis, belonging to the Arctic 
flora, in the valley of the Dead Sea we have representatives 
of the vegetation of the torrid zone, and this in the midst of 
a region with a temperate climate, by a special arrangement, 
seemingly designed to extend the range of human thought and 
observation within limits almost mierocosmical. For while on 
any high mountain in the tropies we may have the near con- 
Junction of these diverse forms of vegetable life thus answer- 
ing the ends of variety and comparison, yet the general sur- 
face of the country in such cases would be torrid, and hence 
ill-adapted to the development of a hardy independent race, 
such as inhabited the mountains of Palestine and Syria. In 
the Holy Land, however, the end is gained by sinking a 
small section down to a tropical level, leaving the rest of the 
country more favorably situated for the support of vigorous 
life, and the development of individuality of national char- 
acter. 
A single observation more is in place here. It is that in 
Syria all plants necessary to life, or conducive to health, are 
either indigenous or flourish under cultivation in the open air, 
and that the indigenous materia medica supplies types of all 
the leading groups of remedies used in the healing art. This 
Statement is illustrated by the fact that in the gardens of 
Syria grow the potato, bean in all its varieties, Indian corn, 
®gg-plant, squash, pumpkin, artichoke, cucumber, onion, 
tomato, turnip, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, carrot, beet, 
and many other vegetables, and the lemon, orange, citron, 
Pomegranate, apricot, plum (in all varieties), peach, apple, 
cherry, blackberry, mulberry, banana, fig, date, grape, and 
other kinds of fruit; the walnut, pistachio, filbert, almond 
and other nuts; the squill, castor oil plant, elaterium, scam- 


