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APPENDIX. 
American, or False Cowslip. Dodecatheon media. 
The name signifies twelve divinities, and the flower is so 
beautiful that a botanist might well fable that the whole circle 
of the Grecian gods conspired to create it. Another plant, the 
caltha palustris, is also called the American cowslip, but its 
more general name is marsh marigold. It is a brilliant yellow 
flower growing in wet places, but quite unlike our elegant 
dodecatheon, which blooms a little later. 
Apples of Sodom. Solarium sodomeum. 
The famous 
“ Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye, 
But turn to ashes on the lips,” 
mentioned by Josephus, yet often regarded as fabulous, are 
at last ascertained to be a kind of purple egg-plant. An 
insect usually punctures the skin of the fruit, causing it, while 
outwardly fair, to gangrene and turn to dust within. In the 
Diary of Henry Teonge, an English fleet chaplain, he writes 
in December, 1675, “This country (around the Dead Sea) 
is altogether unfruitfull, being all over full of stones, which 
looke just like burnt svndurs. And on some low shrubbs 
there grow small round things, which are called apples, but no 
witt like them. They are somewhat fayre to look at; but 
