Botany

Botany the science that treats of the vegetable kingdom. The only trace of a systematic classification on this subject in the Scriptures is found in the account of the creation (Ge 1:11-12), where the following distinctions are made:

1. DE'SHIE, דֶּשֶׁאּ "grass," i.e. the first shoots of herbage; 2. עֵשֶׂבּ ;l,l "herb," i.e. green or tenderplants; 3. עֵוֹ, "tree," i.e. woody shrubs and trees.

These divisions correspond in general to the obvious ones of grassy, herbaceous, and arborescent forms of vegetable growth, the two former comprising annuals and those destitute of a firm stem. Solomon is said to have written, or, at least, discoursed on botanical productions ranging "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall" (1Ki 4:33); but of his treatise or effusions nothing is now extant or further alluded to, if indeed this be any thing more than a hyperbolical mode of representing his general compass of knowledge (comp. Josephus, Ant. 8:2, 5) according to the then unscientific standard. See SCIENCE. A large number and considerable variety, however, of trees and plants are more or less referred to in the Bible, but of many of these there exist very slight means of identifying the exact species according to modern botanical systems. The following is a list of all the individuals of the vegetable kingdom of scriptural occurrence, in the alphabetical order of their Hebrew or Greek names, with their probable modern equivalents, and renderings in the Authorized English Version. See these last each in its proper place in this work.