SINAPI (Zivart), translated mustard tree' in the A. V. of the N. T., has engaged the attention of many commentators, great difficulty having been experienced in finding a plant with the requisite characteristics. The subject was investigated by the present writer in a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society on the i6th March 1844. The passages of the N. T. in which the word occurs are Matt. xiii. ; xvii. 20 ; Mark iv. 31 ; Luke xiii. 19; xvii. 6 ; and it may easily be shown how unsuitable are the plants which have been adduced to the circumstances of the sacred narrative. There is a tree found near Jerusalem, but most abundantly on the banks of the Jordan and round the sea of Tiberias, the seed of which is employed as a sub stitute for mustard ; it is called khardal, which, indeed, is the common Arabic name for mustard. There are different species of khardal 'Char dal, or common mustard ; 2. Khardal barree, or wild mustard ; 3. Khardal roomee, Turkish mus tard. The last appears to be the plant referred to. In the writer's Illustrations of Himalayan Botany, he found a tree of N. W. India, which was there called kharjal, and which appeared possessed of the requisite properties, but he could not find it mentioned in any systematic work, or local Flora, as a native of Palestine. The plant is Salvadora Persica, a large shrub, or tree of moderate size, a native of the hot and dry parts of India, of Persia, and of Arabia. Dr. Roxburgh describes the berries as much smaller than a grain of black pepper, having a strong aromatic smell, and a taste much like that of garden cresses. Dr. Lindley informed the writer that he had seen them in a collection made by Bove. Lastly, Irby and Mangles, in their travels, mention a tree which they suppose to be the mustard tree of Scripture. They met with
it while advancing towards Kerek from the south ern extremity of the Dead Sea. It bore its fruit bunches resembling the currant ; and the seeds had a pleasant, though strongly aromatic taste, nearly resembling mustard. They say : 'We think it possible that this is the tree our Saviour alluded to in the parable of the mustard seed, and not the mustard plant which we have in the north, and which, even when growing large, can never be called a tree, whereas the other is really such, and birds might easily, and actually do, take shelter under its shadow.' It is interesting to know that the name kharjal is applied, even in so remote a country as the north-west of India, to the same plant which, in Syria, is called khara'al, and which no doubt is the chardal of the Talmudists, one of whom describes it as a tree of which the wood was sufficient to cover a potter's shed ; and another says that he was wont to climb into it, as men climb into a fig tree. Hence the author has no doubt but that Salvadora Persica is the mustard tree of Scripture. The plant has a small seed, which produces a large tree with numerous branches, in which the birds ot the air may take shelter. The seed is possessed of the same properties, and is used for the same purposes, as mustard, and has a name, khara'al, of which sinapi is the true translation, and which, moreover, grows abundantly on the very shores of the sea of Galilee, where our Saviour addressed to the multitude the pamble of the mustard seed. —J. F. R.