rhoea (Aleppo) as being rich in the production of these trees ; the town of Batna, in the same district, is believed to derive its name from this circumstance : Betonim, a town of the tribe of Gad (Josh, xiii, 26), has in all prob- ability a similar etymology. Bochart draws attention to tVie fact that pistachio-nuts are mentioned together with almonds in Gen. xliii, 11, and observes that Dios- corides, Theophrastus, and others, speak of the pista- cia-tree conjointly with the almond -tree; as there is no mention in edrly writers of the P. vera growing in Egypt (see Celsius, Ilierobot. i, 27), it was doubtless not found there in patriarchal times, wherefore Jacob's pres- ent to Joseph would have been most acceptable. There is scarcely any allusion to the occurrence of the P. veixi in Palestine among the writings of modern travellers; Kitto {Phys. Hist. Pal. p. 323) says, " It is not much cul- tivated in Palestine, although found there growing wild in some very remarkable positions, as on Mount Tabor, and on the summit of Mount Attarus (see Burckhardt, Syria, p. 334)." Dr. Thomson {The Land and the Booh, i, 413) saj's that the terebinth-trees near Mais el-Jebel had been grafted with the pistacia from Aleppo by or- der of Ibrahim Pasha, but that " the peasants destroyed the grafts lest their crop of oil from the berries of these trees should be diminished." Dr. Hooker saw only two or three pistacia-trees in Palestine. These were out- side the north gate of Jerusalem. But he says the tree is cultivated at Beiriit and elsewhere in Syria. It de- lights in a dry soil, and rises to the height of twenty, and sometimes thirty feet. As it belongs to the same genus as the terebinth-tree, so, like it, the male and fe- male flowers grow on separate trees. It is therefore necessary for the fecundation of the seed that a male tree be planted among the female ones. It is probably owing to the flowers of the latter not being fecundated that the trees occasionally bear oblong fruit-like but hollow bodies, which are sometimes described as galls, sometimes as nuts, of little value. The ripe seeds are enclosed in a woody but brittle w'hitish-colored shell, and within it is the seed-covering, which is thin, mem- branous, and of a reddish color. The fruit is about the size of an olive, but bulging on one side and concave on the other. Inside a tender reddish pidp is a shell, which in its turn encloses a green-colored kernel, of a sweet and agreeable flavor, and abounding in oil. Pistachio- nuts are much eaten by the natives of the countries
Pistachio-nuts {Pistacia Vera).
NUT
245
NUTS
where they are grown, and, as we have seen, they form articles of commerce from Alfghanistau to India — a hot country like Egypt. They are also exported from Syria to Europe in considerable quantities. They might therefore have well formed a part of the present intend- ed for Joseph, notwithstanding the high position which he occupied in Egypt. — Kitto ; Smith.
2. Egoz', tiSX; Sept. Kc'tpvov. This word occurs in the Song of Solomon (v, 11): "I went into the garden of ?H/fe," where probably what is known with us as English loahmts, or in the American market as "Ma- deira nuts," is intended. The Hebrew name is evi- dently the same as the Persian goicz, and the Arabic jo^cz, both of which, when they stand alone, signify the walnut, gowz-hun being the walnut-tree; when used in composition they may signify the nut of any other tree ; VcM?, jowz-i-hoa is the nutmeg, jou-z-i-hindi is the Indian or cocoanut, etc. Abu'l Fadli (in Celsius) says, " The Arabs have borrowed the word jaus from the Persian; in Arabic the term is C/nt.if, which is a tall tree." The Chusf or Chasf IS translated by Freytag "an escu- lent nut, the walnut." The .Jewish rabbins understand the walnut by Eguz. The Greeks employed Kcipvov, and the Komans nux, to denote the walnut (see Casau- bon, On Athenceiis, ii, 65; Ovid, '■'■Nux Elecjia ;" Celsius, Ilierobut. i, 28) ; which last remains in modern lan- guages, as Ital. noce, Fr. noix, Span, nuez, and Ger. nuss. The walnut was, however, also called Kupvov fiaaiXiKuv (Diosc. i, 179), royal nut, from its excellence, and also TitpffiKov, or Persian, having been introduced into Greece from Persia: the name juf/lans has been derived from Jovis glans, the acorn, or nut of Jove. That the walnut was highly esteemed in the East we learn from Abulpliaragius, who states that Al Mahadi, the third caliph of the Abassides, " was buried at the foot of the walnut-tree under which he used to sit." That it is found in Syria has been recorded by several travellers. Thevenot found it in the neighborhood of Mount Sinai, and Belon says of a village not far from Lebanon that it was " well shaded with oak and walnut trees." That it was planted at an early period is well known, and might be easih' proved from a variety of sources. According to Josephus (^]Va?; iii, 10, 8) the walnut-tree was for- merly common, and grew most luxuriantly around the
English Walnut (Jiiglans Hegia).
lake of Gennesareth ; Schulze, speaking of this same dis- trict, says he often saw walnut-trees growing there large enough to shelter four-and-twent}' persons. See also Kitto (Pkt/s. Hist. Pal. p. 250) and Burckhardt (^Sip-ia, p. 265).