There are several kinds of salvias, origanies, and satureias in Palestine, remarkable for their grey thick leaves, and to one of these growing above the Jordan valley the name' Adhbeh (عذبه) is given by the Arabs, which may be a corruption of ezob. There were several kinds of hyssop, such as Greek, coloured, Roman, or desert hyssop (Negaim, xiv, 6 : Parah, xi, 7), bvit only one kind was sacred, of which the seeds are noticed (תמרות) in the latter passage, with the sprouts or stalks. Three species of origany or hyssop are noticed (Ouketzin, ii, 2) as eaten, and Greek hyssop (Sabbath, xiv, 3), with another kind of marjoram, as medicine. Greek hyssop is believed by botanists to have been a Satureia, of the same family with the mint and the marjoram ; and the Greek word is used in the New Testament (Hebrews, ix, 19) as equivalent to the Hebrew hyssop. Short hyssop was tied into a bunch (Parah, xii, 1) for sprinkling.
The crops grown in Palestine have been noted, and included wheat, barley, rye (or spelt), and probably oats (שיפון, see Kilaim, i, 1), with sesame and millet. In the same chapter we tind noticed beans, peas, French beans, white beans, Egyptian beans, chick peas, eshalots, Greek pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, cardamums, mustard, I'ape, carrots or radishes, hemp, indigo, fenugrec, flax, wild crocus ; and tares, jackal-spike and wild corn, growing in good corn. In the next tract of the Mishnah (Shebiith, ii) are noticed cucumbers and gourds, rice, millet, poppies, Egyptian beans, and onions, with the luf (v, i) either an eshalot or a pumpkin ; and (vii, 1) mint, succory, cresses, leeks, milk-wort (נצ חלב), thistles or thorns of some kind (דרדר), indigo, madder (which is now eaten), scolopendrium, wormwood, and other plants with doubtful names. Blackberries are also noticed (אטדין, Shebiith, vii, 5) according to Maimonides, and among flowers the rose (vii, 6) ; also wild asparagus, coriander in the mountains, rocket in the desert, and apparently cabbage (ix, 1) with rue and other plants. There were two kinds of melon, the melopepo and the water melon (Trumoth, ii, 6 ; iii, 1). In another passage we read of rocket, nasturtium, carrots, garlic, and onions, and Cilician pounded beans, Egyptian lentils, and another kind of lentil (Maaseroth, iv, 5 ; v, 4) with (כריש) a word variously explained as leeks or as cresses. The ladanum (לוטם, Shebiith, vii, 6), which is rendered "myrrh" in the Bible, was the gum cistus, which is common in Palestine (Gen., xxxvii, 25), and the word survives in the Arabic ladan (لدن). The Cilician lentils (קלקי) and Egyptian lentils are again noticed (Negaim, vi, i, and Kelim, xvii, 8). Bread was made of wheat, barley, and rye or spelt (Shebuoth, iv, 2), and another enumeration we find garlic, leeks, mint, rue, lettuce, carrot, rape, onions, cabbage, beetroot, cucumbers, pears, quince, and hawthorn, artichokes, chick peas, cistus, cinnamon, and crocus (Ouketzin, i, 2, to iii, 3). The general result of this inquiry is to show that both the fauna and flora of the country were the same as at the present day, as were also the seasons and
