FLORA OF ADEN. 
157 
Some authors were of opinion that the frankincense-tree was also 
imported and cultivated in Palestine. They were misled by the words 
of the Canticles (IV, 6), Till the day break, and the shadows retire, 
I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. - ” 
But there is no reason why we should take these words verbatim and 
not rather consider them as poetical comparisons describing a delicious 
place filled with sweet and balmy perfumes.l 
Pliny says that the kings of Asia planted frankincense- trees at 
Sardes 1 2 . It is, however, not very probable that the tree in question 
was a species of Boswellia , introduced either from Arabia, India., or 
Africa. There is a certain confusion in Pliny's description of this tree 
and it is, therefore, quite possible that the plantation at Sardes consisted 
of Junijoerus pheenicea or thurifera. The gum of these trees, after a 
certain preparation, often went under the name of frankincense. 
XV— RHAMNACEJ5. 
Trees or shrubs, erect or climbing, often armed with spinescent 
branches or stipular spines. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite, 
usually coriaceous ; stipules small or 0. 
Flowers hermaphrodite or polygamous, green or yellow, small, 
usually axillary, solitary or variously fascicled. Inflorescence generally 
cymose. Sepals 4 — 5 ; lobes shortly triangular, erect or recurved, 
usually keeled within, valvate in bud. Petals 4 — 5, rarely 0, inserted 
at the mouth of the calyx-tube, or on the edge of the disk. Stamens 
4 — 5, opposite to and inserted with the petals, often enclosed within 
their folds ; anthers versatile, 2-celled. Disk fleshy and filling the 
calyx-tube, or thin and lining it, entire or lobed. Ovary sessile, free 
or immersed in the disk, wholly free from, or more or less adnate to 
the calyx-tube, 3-, rarely 2 — 4-celled ; ovule 1, rarely 2 in each cell, 
erect, anatropous ; style erect, short, usually 2 — 4-fid, 
Fruit a drupe, or capsule, 1 — 4-celled. Seeds with fleshy albumen, 
rarely exalbuminous ; embryo large, straight ; cotyledons flat, fleshy ; 
radicle inferior. 
Genera 37 ; species about 420, 
Distribution : — Temperate and tropical regions of the whole world. 
1. Zizyphus Juss. 
Shrubs or trees. Medullary rays numerous, very fine. Generally armed 
with stipular spines, which as a rule are unequal, one straight, the other 
1 Celsius, 1. c. p. 242-24B. 
2 Plinius, 1. c. XII, 31. — Cf. Theophrastus, 1. c. IX, 4. 
