. Palestine : the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land. ocrypha; but theseallusions show that it was indigenous in mentions it among the trees whose woodwas employed in the fabrication of idols, to whichuse it was doubtless recommended by the com-pact, heavy, and undecaying character of its other passage describes it as growing uponthe mountains of Hermon ;c which, if understoodof the great Hermon, may be illustrated by thestatement of Pococke, who says that the cypressis the only tree that grows towards the summit ofLebanon; but being checked by the c
. Palestine : the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land. ocrypha; but theseallusions show that it was indigenous in mentions it among the trees whose woodwas employed in the fabrication of idols, to whichuse it was doubtless recommended by the com-pact, heavy, and undecaying character of its other passage describes it as growing uponthe mountains of Hermon ;c which, if understoodof the great Hermon, may be illustrated by thestatement of Pococke, who says that the cypressis the only tree that grows towards the summit ofLebanon; but being checked by the cold, it doesnot there grow spirally, but like a small oak. The Date Palm blossoms and is fructified aboutthe end of this month or the beginning of thenext. The flowers, adhering by very delicatemembranes to the same pedicle, come out in verylong bundles from the trunk between the leaves,and are covered by a spatha (or sheath) whichwithers. The trees have male flowers on different plants from those whichTherefore, unless the flowers of the fruit-bearing (female) tree are. [The Cypress. aJ opens andproduce the fruit impregnated from those of the male, the fruit is abortive. This fact has long been knownand acted upon in the East by persons who had not the least notion of the sexual systemof plants, of which system, as established by Linnaeus, this has, therefore, afforded one ofthe most striking and popular proofs. Where the palm-tree is cultivated, the inhabitants donot trust to the spontaneous impregnation of the female trees from the male blossoms; but,at this time, when the sheaths, that respectively enclose the young clusters of the male flowersand female fruit, begin to open, at which time the latter are formed and the first are mealy,they take a sprig or two of the male cluster and introduce it into the sheath of the female ;or else they take a whole cluster of the male, and sprinkle its meal or farina over severalclusters of the female. The latter practice is common in Eg
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