The PRESIDENT (Professor G. G. Stokes, D.C.L., P.R.S.).—I have now to invite discussion on the paper just read,—a paper containing a most elaborate account of the botany of regions which, as yet, comparatively few have studied. Among those present who are acquainted with the countries spoken of, I observe Dr. Chaplin, who will, perhaps, be kind enough to open the discussion.

T. CHAPLIN, M.D.—I am much obliged to the President for giving me the opportunity of saying a few words, but I am sure, as all present will feel, I can have very little to add to the elaborate and complete description of the botany of Syria and Palestine given by Dr. Post, for which we owe him a deep debt of gratitude. It has fallen to my lot to study with some care, and not altogether without means of personal observation, the flora of a great portion of the district over which Dr. Post has carried us to-night, and I am very glad of the opportunity of finding how much I still have to learn on the subject. I allude particularly to the reasons the author has given as to why the flora of Palestine and Syria is so copious as we find it to be, and why also it contains, comparatively speaking, so few genera peculiar to itself. It may not, perhaps, be known to all present how very much the scientific world is indebted to Dr. Post for the earnest and constant industry with which he has devoted himself to this interesting and important subject, nor to how large an extent he has availed himself of the opportunities afforded him in Beyrout as the head of the Medical and Scientific College there established. I should like here to add that this is one more brilliant instance of the great and important contributions which have been made by Christian missionary institutions for the advancement of science and the benefit of mankind. Personally, I feel extremely glad to meet my old friend and colleague here in London, and am most deeply indebted to him for his very valuable paper.

REV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S.-I am personally more interested in this than in any paper I ever heard read at the Victoria Institute. So far as my own brief and limited experience goes, I have seen in different localities many of the plants in Syria and Palestine which Dr. Post has here recorded, and I have also in Greece seen several of those mentioned as being found in Syria and Palestine. This, however, is only natural when we think of the wide uniformity of the Mediterranean littoral, there being the same

limestone formation in Corsica and Greece as prevails throughout Syria and Palestine. The colour of the soil and the botanical species and geological formations in Greece remind one strongly of what is met with in Syria and Palestine. If one takes an example, there is the Gladiolus Illyricus or Gladiolus Atroviolacens, which Dr. Post informs us is supposed to be "the lily of the field," the lily of the Gospel: first, because it is a lily, which the anemones are not; and, next, because it is found in the fields, where, as I myself have seen, it flourishes in the spring-time at Beyrout and in the neighbourhood of Issus. This gladiolus is found but rarely in England, the New Forest being one of the few localities where it is met with, and I think, speaking under correction, that the Gladiolus Aleppicus, a dusky species, is much rarer: I had one specimen of the latter given to me at Jerusalem. I should like to add a few words about the oak galls mentioned in the paper. My late father, Francis Walker, who was a Fellow of the Linnæan Society, was a great authority on oak galls, of which he made a special study, and in Professor Mayer's work, translated by him and continued by Mr. Edward Fitch, there is an account of the galls round Vienna. Five kinds of oak are mentioned as bearing galls. I always heard from my father that the oak had more galls peculiar to it than any other tree. Of the five kinds of oak here alluded to as bearing galls, some of them would seem to be Southern or Eastern species. In fact, most of the trees bearing galls appear to be peculiar to the East. I have seen galls on most of the trees here mentioned.

The AUTHOR.-I may here remark that the number of galls found in the region of Amanus is simply astounding. I never saw such a number. I am now engaged in the study of a collection, but am not at present able to report upon them. If any one would indicate a gentleman who would undertake the study of them I should be greatly obliged. The variety one meets with in the northern woods of Syria is simply astonishing.

Rev. J. NEIL.-I should like to add a word as to our indebtedness to Dr. Post, not only for this paper, but for the valuable work he has accomplished in the regions of which he speaks. In this paper there are no fewer than seventy-five new species or varieties,— mostly species,-which bear Dr. Post's name (applause). The discovery of such a number of species and varieties certainly entitles him to our best thanks. I should like to offer one or two remarks about Southern Palestine, as to the fewness of the

grasses. What Dr. Post says is very true,-the number of species. generally in Palestine, when we consider the limit of its extent, is simply enormous. Look at the list given in Canon Tristram's Flora of Palestine, and then look at the list of British plants, and one is astonished at the immensely superior number of species found in Palestine,—a land scarcely larger than Wales. The Leguminosæ in Palestine are represented by 358 species, but in England, Scotland, and Wales by less than 90 species. That is, in Palestine there are four times as many species of Leguminosæ as we have in Great Britain. Of Composite there are twice as many species in Palestine as we have here; of Cruciferæ, Labiatæ, and Umbellifera, more than twice as many; and of Liliaceæ more than three times as many. But this is not the case with regard to the grasses, for while there are only 158 species of the Gramineae named in Palestine, we have in England about 138 species. That is, the proportion in this case is only about as eight to seven. This may be said to be characteristic of a country which is swept by the awful Sirocco, or south-east wind of the Bible, which visits it in May and October, and, blowing over a thousand miles of the Arabian sand-desert, bursts upon Palestine like the blast of a furnace, deprived of all ozone and possessed of a terribly scorching power. The small number of species of grasses, compared with the great number of species of other natural orders, is a very singular feature in the botany of Palestine. Hay, Dr. Post says, is made now, but it was never made in olden times, and there is no trace of it in what we have been able to gather of the life and habits of the people, nor any mention of it in the Bible. The practice of making hay has been introduced by Europeans. The natives feed their animals on crushed straw (teben, the Hebrew teven) and barley for the greater part of the year; and glad enough have I been to see the newly-cut fresh barley grass brought up to my stables for the horses during the two brief months, March and April, when alone any kind of grass could be had. Another feature is the abundance and splendour of the crimson flowers. I do not think Dr. Post points this out, though in the case of the littoral he speaks of Anemone Coronaria, and Ranunculus Asiaticus. Against all the brilliant crimson flowers of Palestine, we in England have only three amongst all our true wild plants, the poppy, the pimpernel, and the pheasant's eye (Adonis autumnalis). In Syria one may see eight or nine different crimson or scarlet-crimson flowers in a day's walk. I will here say a word about the Anemone Coronaria, with which I would associate the

tulip, Tulipa Gesneriana, of a brilliant red, the prevailing species, which, when opening in the bud, appears very like Anemone Coronaria in the same condition, and which I still think, with all deference to Dr. Post, is the most likely claimant to the title of "the lily” of the Authorised Version. The tulip and the Anemone Coronaria are very common flowers. The gladiolus which we have in Southern Palestine seems to be the same as the English one, at least it is the same somewhat insignificant pinkish colour, the other mentioned by Dr. Post being very rare. But the lips of the bride in the Song of Songs are compared to "lilies," and this flower must therefore have been of a crimson colour. I take it that “the Rose of Sharon" must have been a cultivated plant, because among the natives you never hear them talk of the wild flower of any particular district, nor is any wild flower ever alluded to in that way in Holy Scripture. The whole utilitarian, ignorant, and unscientific nature of the masses in the East precludes the possibility of such a thing. Valuable cultivated products are thus alluded to as "the cedars of Lebanon," "the wheat of Minnith," &c., but wild flowers, never. If you ask a fellah the name of the loveliest wild flower, he will probably reply with undisguised contempt, Ya hhawadjah hhasheeh, "Oh, sir, it's grass." Consequently "the Rose of Sharon must have been a cultivated flower. It was in all probability a white Damascene rose of the free flowering kind, now grown for the purposes of the perfume market. There is thus afforded a striking and beautiful contrast in the Song of Songs (answering to "the white and ruddy" of Canticles, v. 10) between the lowly wild crimson anemone or tulip, imaging our Saviour's human nature, and the rich white cultivated rose, representing His divine nature, in the words, “I am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Plains" (Cant. ii. 1). A further very peculiar and striking feature in connexion with the Flora of Southern Palestine, and more or less of all the adjacent regions, is the growth of plants mostly on the northern slopes of the hills, the southern slopes being left comparatively bare, or clothed chiefly with desert species with whitish-woolly or glaucus foliage. Three causes, I believe, account for this curious and highly characteristic feature of Northern Palestine, which makes the country look far greener and more fertile when traversed from north to south, than it does when traversed in the opposite direction. First, the sub-tropical rain, the geshem, or 'gushing down-pour," of the Hebrew Bible, which during the wet season, November to April, comes up from the south-west, and

Secondly, the

cloud all day, season, May to

Last, but not

washes away the soil on part of the southern side. burning sun, scorching down unshaded by a single for some six months in succession, during the hot October, pouring its sultry rays from the south. least, the terrible Sirocco, the burning south-east wind of May and October, to which I have already alluded. With regard to what is said at the end of Dr. Post's paper as to certain plants flourishing in Syria and Palestine,-in Southern Palestine, I must certainly, with reference to some of these plants, take exception to the word “flourishing." I allude especially to the apricot and the apple. The apples in any part of Palestine are certainly not to be compared with ours; and Mr. Meshullam, who for 25 years, as an experienced practical horticulturalist, cultivated the so-called gardens of Solomon at Wady Urtas, assured me that the apple-tree could not bear for more than three or four years running in Southern Palestine, without deteriorating and requiring a fresh graft. The same remark applies to the apricot, which is not grown in any quantity further south than 130 miles north of Jerusalem. I mention this because attempts have been made to identify the apple and the apricot with the tappooahh-"the apple," of our Authorised and Revised Versions —which latter I cannot doubt was the orange. (See my two letters to the English Churchman, of March 29th and April 5th, 1888.) All Southern Palestine is too hot and dry to allow of the apple flourishing there, as Dr. Tristram states in Aids to Bible Students; and this is true in a less measure of the apricot, which, like the apple, ripens well in the open in this country. In a Guide to Kew, published under Sir Joseph Hooker's authority, our apple is said to be the. "apple" of Scripture.

Mr. W. GRIFFITH.-I agree with the previous speakers that we are greatly indebted to Dr. Post for the valuable contribution he has made to the science of botany. botany. Such a contribution as this will stand as a monument of the research which has been successful in discovering so many new species. I should not be bold enough to criticise his paper; but I desire, as a learner, to ask one or two questions. The flora described to us is rich in the extreme, both the species and the genera being numerous. Will Dr. Post inform us whether many or any of the species contribute much to the materia medica of that science in which he has so greatly distinguished himself? Botany is a beautiful study in itself, but we must not lose sight of the utilitarian