VIOLET OF ECOKOMIC PLANTS. 431 



they were fit to be eaten, but if you pluck tbem witli your 

 hands they dissolve into smoke and ashes." Much difference of 

 opinion prevails among modern writers as to what the plant 

 above spoken of is ; but if we restrict the inquiry to the words, 

 " their vine is the vine of Sodom," and take the word vine as a 

 name for trailing and climbing plants in general, with Josephus's 

 description of the fruit, it seems to lead us to believe that the 

 plant was the Colocynth {see Colocynth). 



Another plant (Solanum sodoweum) has received its specific 

 name from its being supposed to be the fruit that tempts to the 

 eye, and turns to ashes on the lips. It is abundant in the 

 valley of the lower Jordan, and the region of the Dead Sea, 

 especially near the remains of what Josephus calls the City of 

 Sodom. It is, however, not a vine, but a rude-growing, stiff- 

 branched, spiny shrub, 4 or 5 feet high. The fruit is about the 

 size of a small apple, and when ripe of a yellowish colour, fair to 

 look at. It is pulpy inside. "When ripe, the shell hardens, and 

 the inside dries up, and on being broken, it emits what appears 

 to be the " dust and ashes " of Josephus, the ashes, no doubt, 

 being the seeds. Of other plants mentioned as producing the 

 Apple of Sodom, Calotro;pis procera is one. It is a small 

 gouty tree of the Swallowwort family (Asclepiadaceas), growing 

 abundantly about the south end of the Dead Sea. Its fruit is a 

 follicle, about the size of a small apple, and completely filled 

 with fine silky hairs, to which the seeds are attached, and 

 certainly cannot be compared to dust and ashes. 



Vinegar Plant is the mycelium of a fungus of the nature 

 of dry-rot, and can be generated in a mixture of sugar, treacle, 

 and water, placed in a shallow vessel. After a certain period a 

 filamentous mycelium appears on the surface of the water, which 

 thickens, becoming, according to age, a tough leather-like sub- 

 stance, the water becoming a good vinegar. This process is 

 hastened by impregnating the new mixture with a small portion 

 of the old. It is on« of the forms of the common mould 

 {Penicillium glaucum), 



Violet {Vwla odomta), a perennial herb of the Violet family 



