rovencal, _amondala_), from the Greek and
Latin _amygdalus_. What this word meant is not very clear, but the
native Hebrew name of the plant (_shaked_) is most expressive. The word
signifies "awakening," and so is a most fitting name for a tree whose
beautiful flowers, appearing in Palestine in January, show the wakening
up of Creation. The fruit also has always been a special favourite, and
though it is strongly imbued with prussic acid, it is considered a
wholesome fruit. By the old writers many wonderful virtues were
attributed to the fruit, but I am afraid it was chiefly valued for its
supposed virtue, that "five or six being taken fasting do keepe a man
from being drunke" (Gerard).[12:1] This popular error is not yet
extinct.

As an ornamental tree the Almond should be in every shrubbery, and, as
in Gerard's time, it may still be planted in town gardens with
advantage. There are several varieties of the common Almond, differing
slightly in the colour and size of the flowers; and there is one little
shrub (Amygdalus nana) of the family that is very pretty in the front
row of a shrubbery. All the species are deciduous.

FOOTNOTES:

[12:1] "Plutarch mentions a great drinker of wine who, by the use of
bitter almonds, used to escape being intoxicated."--_Flora Domestica_,
p. 6.

ALOES.

And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The Aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

_A Lover's Complaint_, st. 39.

Aloes have the peculiarity that they are the emblems of the most intense
bitterness and of the richest and most costly fragrance. In the Bible
Aloes are mentioned five times, and always with reference to their
excellence and costliness.[13:1] Juvenal speaks of it only as a bitter--

"Animo corrupta superbo
Plus Aloes quam mellis habet" (vi. 180).

Pliny describes it very minutely, and says, "Strong it is to smell unto,
and bitter to taste" (xxvii. 4, Holland's translation). Our old English
writers spoke of it under both aspects. It occurs in several recipes of
the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, as a strong and bitter purgative. Chaucer
notices its bitterness only--

"The woful teres that they leten falle
As bittre weren, out of teres kynde,
For peyne, as is ligne Aloes or galle."

_Troilus and Cryseide_, st. 159.

But the author of the "Remedie of Love," formerly attributed to Chaucer,
s