TSAPHTSAPHA VIDVDV) occurs only in xvii. 5, and is usually translated willow. tree ;" He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field ; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a soillosv-tree.' Celsius, how ever, thinks that the word means /aegis islanza. plaszities, although he at the same time gives all the evidence for the former meaning. First, the Rabbins consider it to mean a tree, et quidem salix ;' R. Ben Melech says it is species salicis, Arabibus Tsiphts0h dicta ;' while Avicenna hoc tit. dicit Tsipthaph esse Chilaf.' Travellers, also, give us similar information. Thus Paul Lucas : Les Arabes le nomment salmi, qui signifie en Arabe sank.' Rauwolf (Travels, i. ch. 9), speak ing of the plants he found near Aleppo, remarks, ' There is also a peculiar sort of willow-trees, called safsaf, etc. ; the stems and twigs are long, thin, weak, and of a pale-yellow colour ; on their twigs here and there are shoots of a span long, like unto the Cypriotish wild fig-trees, which put forth in the spring tender and woolly flowers, like unto the blossoms of tbe poplar-tree, only they are of a more drying quality, of a pale colour, and a fragrant smell. The inhabitants pull of these
great quantities, and distil a very precious and sweet water out of them.' This practice is still continued in Eastern countries as far as Northern India, and was, and probably still is, well known in Egypt. The species which is called cni/af by the Arabs is called Salix rEgyptiaca by botanists • and it is probable that it is also found in Syria, and may be the above safsaf Indeed, it was found by Hasselquist on his journey from Acre to Sidon, as he mentions it as S. Egyptiaca, v. Safsaf [OREsim]. —J. F. R.