LILY
433
LILY
tlfies the plant in question with tlie Lilhtm cmididum of Linn:i?iis, It is probably the same as that called in the IMishna • king's lily' (Kitaim, v. 8). Pliny (xxi, 5) de- fines KQivov as 'rubens lilium;' and Dioscorides, in an- other passage, mentions the fact that there are lilies with purple flowers, but whether by this he intended the Lilium martagon or Chalcedonicum, Kiihn leaves undecided. Now in the passage of Athenajus above quoted it is said, Eovaov yap tivai ry 'EWIivujv (piovy TO Kpivov. But in the Etymologicum Magnum (s. v. 'Siovaa) we find rd yap Xelpia vtto ruiv ^oji^iicaiv crovcra Xeytrai. As the shushan is thus identified both with Kpivov, the red or purple lily, and with \tipLov, the white lily, it is evidently impossible, from the word it- self, to ascertain exactly the kind of lily which is refer- red to. If the shushan or shoshannah of the O. T. and the Kpivov of the Sermon on the Mount be identical, which there seems no reason to doubt, the plant desig- nated by these terms must have been a conspicuous ob- ject on the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret (JMatt. vi, 28; Luke xii, 27); it must have flourished in the deep, broad valleys of Palestine (Cant, ii, 1), among the thorny , shrubs (ib. ii, 2) and pastures of the desert {ih. ii, 16 ; iv, 5 ; vi, 3), and must have been remarkable for its rapid and luxuriant growth (Hos. xiv, 5 ; Ecchis. xxxix, 14). The purple flowers of the Jchoh, or wild artichoke, which abounds in the plain north of Tabor and in the vallej^ of Esdraelon, have been thought by some to be the ' lil- ies of the field' alluded to in Matt, vi, 28 (Wilson, Lands of the Bible, ii, 110). A recent traveller mentions a plant, with lilac flowers like the hyacinth, and called by the Arabs tisweih, which he considered to be of the spe- cies denominated lily in Scripture (Bonar, Desert of iSi- na'i, p. 329)" (Smith). Tristram strongly inclines to identify the scarlet anemone {Anemone coronaria) with the Scripture " lily" (_Nat. Hist, of Bible, p. 4G4).
In the N. Test, the word " lily" occurs " in the well- known and beautiful passage (Matt, vi, 2G), 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, nei- ther do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these;' so also in Luke xii, 27. Here it is evident that the plant alluded to must have been indigenous or grown wild in the vicinity of the Sea of GaUlee, must have been of an ornamental character, and, from the Greek term Kpivov being applied to it, of a liliaceous na- ture. The name koivov occurs in all the old Greek writers (see Dioscor. iii, 116 ; compare Claudian. Epithed. seren. 126 ; Martial, v, 37, G sq. ; Calpurn. vi, 33 ; Athen. XV, 677, C80; Virgil, Eel. x, 25; Pliny, xv, 7; xxi, 11). Theophrastus first uses it, and is supposed bj' Sprengel to apply it to species of Narcissus and to Lilium can- didum. Dioscorides indicates two species, but very im- perfectly : one of them is supposed to be the Liliuvi camlidum, and the other, with a reddish flower, may be L. viartagon or /,. Chalcedonicum. He alludes more particularly to the lilies of Sj-ria and of PamphyUa be- ing well suited for making the ointment of lily. Plinj' enumerates three kinds, a white, a red, and a purple- colored lily. Travellers in Palestine mention that in the month of January the fields and groves everywhere abound in various species of lily, tulip, and narcissus. Benard noticed, near Acre, on Jan. 18th, and about Jaffa on the 23d, tulips, white, red, blue, etc. Gnmpenberg saw the meadows of Galilee covered with the same flow- ers on the 31st. Tulips figure conspicuously among the flowers of I'alestine, varieties probably of Tulipa Ges- neriuna (Kitto's Pcdestine, p. ccxv). So Pococke says, ' I saw many tulips growing wild in the fields (in March), and any one who considers how beautiful those flowers are to the eye would be apt to conjecture that these are the lilies to which Solomon in all his glory was not to be compared.' This is much more hkely to" be the plant intended than some others which have been adduced, as, for instance, the scarlet amuryUis, having white flowers with bright purple streaks, fdund by Salt at Adowa. Others have preferred the Croicn imjierial, Y.— E E
which is a native of Persia and Cashmere. Most au- thors have united in considering the white lily, Lilium candidum, to be the ijlant to which our Saviour referred ;
^Vhite Lily {Lilium Candidum).
but it is doubtful whether it has ever been found in a wild state in I'alestine. Some, indeed, have thought it to be a native of the New World. Dr. Lindley, how- ever, in the Gardeners' Chronicle (ii, 744), says, 'This notion cannot be sustained, because the white lily occurs in an engraving of the annunciation, executed some- where about 1480 by Martin Schongauer; and the first voj-age of Columbus did not take place till 1492. In this veiy rare print the lily is represented as growing in an ornamental vase, as if it were cultivated as a curious object.' This opinion is confirmed by a correspondent at Aleppo {Gardeners' Chronicle, iii, 429), who has re- sided long in Syria, but is acquainted only with the bot- any of Aleppo and Antioch : ' I never saw the white lily in a wild state, nor have I heard of its being so in Syria. It is cultivated here on the roofs of the houses in potS as an exotic bulb, like the dalfodil.' In consequence of this difficidty, the late Sir J. E. Smith was of opinion that the plant alluded to under the name of lily was the Amaryllis lutea (now Oporanthus luteus), 'whose golden liliaceous flowers in autumn afford one of the most bril- liant and gorgeous objects in nature, as the fields of the Levant are overrun with them ; to them the expression of Solomon, in all his glory, not being arrayed like one of them, is peculiarly appropriate.' Dr. Lindley con- ceives ' it to be much more probable that the plant in- tended by our Saviour was the Ixiolirion montanum, a plant allied to the amaryllis, of very great beauty, with a slender stem, and clusters of the most delicate violet flowers, abounding in Palestine, where colonel Chesney found it m the most brilliant profusion' (?. c. p. 744). In reply to this, a correspondent furnishes an extract of a letter from Dr. Bowring, which throws a new light upon the subject : ' I cannot describe to j^ou with botanical accuracy the Uly of Palestine. I heard it called by the title of lAlia Syriaca, and I imagine under this title its botanical characteristics may be hunted out. Its color is a brilliant red; its size about half that of the common tiger lily. The white lily I do not remember to have seen in any part of Syria. It was in April and May that I observed my flower, and it was most abundant in the district of Galilee, where it and the Rhododendron (which grew in rich abundance round the paths) most