sleep on such a bed. Not that any uncivil insinuations are intended; perhaps Apollo has, in the present age, a greater number of legitimate children than ever were known to live at the same time; but if already we have fine poets, such inspiration might produce Shakspeares.

SYLVAN SKETCHES.

АСАСІА.

GLEDITSIA.

LEGUMINOSE.

POLYGAMIA DIECIA.

The tree commonly called in this country the Acacia, is the Robinia, or Pseudo-acacia; but that here meant is the threethorned Acacia, or Honey-locust tree, botanically called Gleditsia triacanthos.—French, fevier.

THE Gleditsia triacanthos, or Honey-locust tree, is a native of North America, remarkable for its brilliant green; the leaves are what the botanists term doubly pinnate, or bipinnate, having nine or ten pairs of small leaves, or leaflets, placed opposite, at certain distances, upon a common stalk, which forms the pinnate leaf: of these four or five pairs are placed, in the same regular manner, upon a second stalk, or midrib,-the whole, in botanical language, forming a bipinnate leaf. The flowers are small, and too nearly of the colour of the leaves to make any show; but the pod or legume which succeeds, being a foot or a foot and a half long, and of a dark brown colour, has a curious effect contrasted with the cheerful colour of the foliage.

The trunk is guarded with thorns three or four inches in length, having smaller ones coming out from their sides nearly at right angles; these are red, and have a very singular appearance. The branches also are armed with red thorns, proportionably smaller.

B

The leaves of this tree, which spread open in fine weather, will droop at the approach of bad weather, and their upper surfaces nearly join, as though in a sleeping state. In this country the leaves do not appear till June, and the flowers not till the end of July. It does not produce any blossom until it has acquired a considerable height and size.

There is a variety with fewer spines, smaller leaves, and oval pods, which is, not very accurately, named the Gleditsia inermis, the unarmed Gleditsia. The name was more accurately given by Linnæus to one of the Acacias of the genus Mimosa, now called Mimosa Houstoni, which has no thorns. The Acacias mentioned by travellers are generally those of the Mimosa genus.

Sir Archibald Edmondstone speaks of the Acacia as reminding him of English scenery; the kind mentioned seems to be that called the Egyptian Acacia:

66

Having explained to the inhabitants that our object was old buildings, they informed us there were some in the neighbourhood. Accordingly, in the evening, we rode to see them; and, in our way, passed through a beautiful wood of acacias, the foliage of which, at a little distance, brought English scenery to my recollection. The trees far exceeded in size any I had ever seen of the kind; and upon measuring the trunk of one, it proved to be seventeen feet three inches in circumference*.”

Thevenot, speaking of the plain called the Desert of Sin (the place where the Israelites regretted the onions of Egypt, and murmured against God, and where the manna was sent them), says, "In this plain we saw several Acacia trees, from which is obtained the gum, also called Akakia by the Arabs. It is necessary to ob

* Journey to two of the Oases of Upper Egypt, page 44.

serve, that the Acacia-trees now so common in France were brought to us from America, and do not afford this gum; and that which is called Acacia in the shops is the inspissated juice of the Prunus spinosa, and comes to us from Germany. These trees are neither higher nor larger than our common willows, but they have very thin leaves, and thorns. The Arabs gather the gum in the autumn, without wounding the trees, for it flows spontaneously*."

This account of their size is rather at variance with the mention made of these trees by most travellers; for they are generally described as of a gigantic height and prodigious bulk. The kind mentioned by Sir Archibald Edmondstone is the Egyptian Acacia, or true Mimosa, Mimosa vera, which is the species from which the gum is obtained. Maximilian, and some other writers, speak of the Acacia or Mimosa in general, without noting the species. Probably the trees described by Thevenot were young, or in a soil not favourable to their growth. The Acacias he speaks of as having been brought to France from America, are, doubtless, the Gleditsia, or Locusttrees afore-mentioned.

Dr. Shaw describes the Acacia vera as the largest and most common tree in the deserts of Arabia; and supposes it to be the shittim wood, or shittah tree of the scriptures. Mr. Bruce describes it as the tree of all deserts from the northernmost parts of Arabia to the extremity of Ethiopia. He says the gum is obtained by making incisions with an axe. Some authors compare the size of this tree with that of a large mulberry tree. The acacia veræ succus of the ancients is supposed to have been expressed from the unripe podst.

* Thevenot's Voyage du Levant, Part I. p. 318.

† See Dr. Harris's Natural History of the Bible, p. 345.

VERBENACEÆ.

AGNUS CASTUS.

VITEX AGNUS-CASTUS.

DIDYNAMIA ANGIOSPERMIA.

Named Vitex from the flexibility of the twigs: the word Agnus in Greek has the same signification as Castus in Latin, chaste in English. The name refers to the celebrity the seeds of this shrub enjoyed in old times, for promoting chastity; wherefore, in the festivals in honour of Ceres, the Athenian matrons strewed them on their couches. From the same notion, and from the aromatic pungency of the seeds, it has been also called monk's-pepper; and hemp tree, from the form of the leaves.-French, gattilier.— Italian, agno casto, vitice.

THIS shrub grows eight or ten feet high, branched all the way; the leaves grow seven together at the end of a long footstalk, something in the manner of lupine leaves; gradually diminishing from the middle one to those on the outside: they are dark green on the upper side, hoary beneath. The flowers grow in spikes, a foot or more in length, at the ends of the branches; they are white or blue, and set in whorls at regular distances. They blow late in the year; the shrub is often in full blossom in the middle of October. In warm seasons when the flowers open freely, their odour is very pleasant.

The Agnus castus is a native of Sicily, Naples, Egypt, Tunis, Aleppo, Virginia, and the islands of the Archipelago. It was cultivated in this country as early as the year 1570, but does not produce seeds here. It is recorded that Juno was brought into the world under a shrub of Agnus castus, on the banks of the Imbrasus,