INTRODUCTION. 



xxxvii 



jujube, well known in this country as a sweet- 

 meat. Ziziphus Lotus is famous for being the 

 plant which afforded food to the ancient Loto- 

 phagi, or Lotus-eaters.* Homer states that it 

 was so delicious, that whatever stranger once 

 tasted it immediately forgot his friends and native 

 comitrv, and desired only to dwell within reach of 

 it. It is a prickly shrub, and bears an abundance 

 of purplish berries of the size of sloes, and con- 

 taining large stones. The pulp is mealy and of a 

 delicious flavour. Under the name of seedra or 

 sadr, it still affords food to the Arabs, who sepa- 

 rate the pulp from the stone by gently pounding 

 the fruit in a mortar, and either convert it into 

 a kind of bread at once, or lav it by for winter 

 use. A kind of wine is also made from the fruit, 

 but this will not keep more than a few days. 

 ]\Iungo Park, Dr. Shaw, and other travellers 

 found the tree in abundance in many of the sandy 

 parts of Arabia; and the latter states that the 

 fruit called nabk, is regularly exposed for sale 

 in the markets of Barbary. Ziziphus spina- 

 Christi and Paliurus aculeatus, prickly shrubs 

 common in the East, are severally believed by 

 many persons to have furnished our Blessed 

 Saviour's cro^ra of thorns. Only two plants of 

 this order are indigenous to Britain, and belong to 

 the genus Rhamnus ; their berries are medicinal, 

 but too violent in their effects to be used ^^ith 

 safety. 



* See Tennyson'-s beautiful poem ''The Lotus-eaters." The Eg^-p- 

 tian lotus is a very different plant, being a species of water-lily, 

 Kyraphcea Lotus. 



