so typical of
glory and resurrection, would have ranked high in their mythology, if
it, and its properties, had been known to them. Moreover, an examination
of the elaborate works of Josephus, Herodotus, King, and Diodorus, so
full in their description of Egyptian mythology, has failed to elicit
any description or notice of it whatever.'

Nearly every one has read of the famous Rose of Jericho (_Anastatica
hierochontina_) or Holy Rose--a low, gray-leaved annual, utterly unlike
a rose, growing abundantly in the arid wastes of Egypt, and also
throughout Palestine and Barbary, and along the sandy coasts of the Red
Sea. One of the most curious of the cruciferous plants, it exhibits, in
a rare degree, a hygrometric action in its process of reproduction.
During the hot season it blooms freely, growing close to the ground,
bearing its leaves and blossoms upon its upper surface; when these fall
off, the stems become dry and ligneous, curving upward and inward until
the plant becomes a ball of twigs, containing its closed seed-vessels in
the centre, and held to the sand by a short fibreless root. In this
condition, it is readily freed by the winds, and blown across the
desert, until it reaches an oasis or the sea; when, yielding to the
'_Open Sesame_' of water, it uncloses, leaving nature to use its
jealously guarded treasures at her will.

The dried plant, if carefully preserved, retains for a long time its
hygrometric quality. When wet, it expands to its original form,
displaying florets (?) not unlike those of the elder, but larger,
closing again as soon as the moisture evaporates. Hence it is
reverenced in Syria as a holy emblem. The people call it _Kaf Maryam_,
or Mary's Flower, and many superstitions are held regarding it, one of
which is, that it first blossomed on the night on which our Saviour was
born. Growing everywhere, upon heaps of rubbish and roofs of old houses,
by the wayside, and almost under the very door-stones, it creeps into
the surroundings of the people, weaving its chains of white, yellow, or
purple flowers while sunshine lasts, and, when apparent decay overtakes
it, teaching its beautiful lesson of Life in Death. Who can cavil at the
thought which raises it to a symbol of that Eternal Love forever weaving
endless chains from heart to heart, no spot too lowly for its tendrils
to penetrate, or too dreary for its bloom.

Some specimens of the Anastatica have been carried to this country by
travellers. O