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    340 FBTJITS IN THEIR SEASON.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    " " ——"" The Walnut Traces Its Noble Gen...

    the Tabernacle were fashioned after its form ; and a branch of the tree dry and had sap the less honor stick of was being made the subj to blossom ect of a and miracle bear , when on being Aaron do laid not 's

    up befor to e have the Lord been who had intimate appointed with the him fruit . The Cato Rom onl ans mentioning appear them as " Greek very nuts" and some believe that , even this y supposed

    allusion reallrefers to walnuts ; rather than to almonds . The tree is indigenous y to Barbary , where it grows so abundantly that its

    delicate fruit is not even reserved exclusively for the human palate , the Moorsit is saidbeing accustomed to drive their goats under

    the trees as , they gather , it , when the animals carefully nibble off the skins as it falls and then greedily feed . In this , its native land ,

    it furnishes the first fruits of the year , the blossoms appearing in January , and its harvest being matured by April . Its generic name ,

    because A _^ myg dalus its _, earl is derived blossoms from announce a Hebrew the coming word si of gnif spring ying preceding vigilance ,

    y , even its own leaves , a fact which the fanciful Greeks invented a myth to account for . Phillis , the beautiful Queen of Thrace , had

    not long been the bride of Demophoon , son of Theseus , who had been cast upon her shores when returning from the siege of Troy ,

    and whom she had kindly received and at last married , when the newly-wedded husbandhearing of the death of his father at Athens ,

    left her to proceed thither , , _jxromising however to return in a month . Happening to be detained beyond this timehis disconsolate wife

    , wandered daily by the sea to watch for his return , braving even the coldest blasts of winter , until at length grief and exposure so wrought

    upon her that she one day fell dead upon the shore ; when the pitying gods , admiring her constancy , saved her from corruption by

    changing her into an almond tree . Not long after , Demophoon at last arrivedandovercome with grief on hearing the mournful fate of

    his latel , y blooming , bride , rushed wildly to the lifeless looking tree and clasped it in his arms . The soul of his Phillis , changed as was

    her form , responded to him still , and , quickened by his warm embrace , the tree burst forth into a joyous flash of blossoms , though

    even the time of leafing had not yet arrived . Surely it would be perfectly impious to suppose that a bloom thus born of love could

    possibly have ripened into deadly poison , yet so little _resjDect do the botanists pay to the memory of the gentle Queen Phillis , that

    they decline to determine between the sweet and the bitter almond as to which is the original typeand which the varietysince

    both are found growing wild , and , even the same individual , plant it is said will bear the one or the other kind of fruit , according to

    variation of culture . Had our Attic friends noticed this circumstance they would probably have added a chapter to the history of

    Demophoon , and traced the change in the fruit to his forgetting his first faithful love and contracting a second marriage . The

    difference between the two trees is very trifling , and even the kernels are

    exactly similar in appearance j but in the case of the bitter almond

    340 Fbtjits In Their Season.

    340 _FBTJITS IN THEIR SEASON .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1861, page 340, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011861/page/52/