Curious Creatures in Zoology

by John Ashton

The Lamb-Tree.

As a change from this awful animal, let us examine the Planta Tartarica Borometz—which was so graphically delineated by Joannes Zahn in 1696. Although this is by no means the first picture of it, yet it is the best of any I have seen.

A most interesting book[37] on the “Vegetable Lamb of Tartary” has been written by the late Henry Lee, Esq., at one time Naturalist of the Brighton Aquarium, and I am much indebted to it for matter on the subject, which I could not otherwise have obtained.

The word Borometz is supposed to be derived from a Tartar word signifying a lamb, and this plant-animal was thoroughly believed in, many centuries ago—but there seem to have been two distinct varieties of plant, that on which little lambs were found in pods, and that as represented by Zahn, with a living lamb attached by its navel to a short stem. This stalk was flexible, and allowed the lamb to graze, within

its limits; but when it had consumed all the grass within its reach, or if the stalk was severed, it died. This lamb was said to have the actual body, blood, and bones of a young sheep, and wolves were very fond of it—but, luckily for the lamb-tree, these were the only carnivorous animals that would attack it.

In his “Histoire Admirable des Plantes” (1605) Claude Duret, of Moulins, treats of the Borometz, and says: “I remember to have read some time ago, in a very ancient Hebrew book entitled in Latin the Talmud Ierosolimitanum, and written by a Jewish Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by others, in the year of Salvation 436, that a certain personage named Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia) affirmed, on the authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain country of the earth which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in the Hebrew Jeduah. It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel, grew a stem or root by which this Zoophyte, or plant-animal, was fixed attached, like a gourd, to the soil below the surface of the ground, and, according to the length of its stem or root, it devoured all the herbage which it was able to reach within the circle of its tether. The hunters who went in search of this creature were unable to capture, or remove it, until they had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed arrows, or darts, when the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth, and died. Its bones being placed with certain ceremonies and incantations in the mouth of one desiring to foretell the future, he was instantly seized with a spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift of prophecy.”

Mr. Lee then says: “As I was unable to find in the Latin translation of the Talmud of Jerusalem, the passage mentioned by Claude Duret, and was anxious

to ascertain whether any reference to this curious legend existed in the Talmudical books, I sought the assistance of learned members of the Jewish community, and, amongst them, of the Rev. Dr. Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi Delegate of the United Congregations of the British Empire. He most kindly interested himself in the matter, and wrote to me as follows: ‘It affords me much gratification to give you the information you desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna Kilaim, chap. viii. § 5 (a portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs: “Creatures called Adne Hasadeh (literally ‘lords of the field’) are regarded as beasts.” There is a variant reading, Abne Hasadeh (stones of the field). A commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235), writes as follows, on this passage: ‘It is stated in the Jerusalem Talmud that this is a human being of the mountains: it lives by means of its navel: if its navel be cut, it cannot live. I have heard in the name of Rabbi Meir, the son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal called Jeduah. This is the Jedoui mentioned in Scripture (lit. wizard, Lev. xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind of large stem issues from a root in the earth on which this animal, called Jadua, grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the Jadua has, in all respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its navel it is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature can approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills them. Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around. When they want to capture it, no man dares approach it, but they tear at the stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.’ Another commentator, Rabbi Obadja, of Berbinoro, gives the

same explanation, only substituting ‘They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,’ &c.

“The author of an ancient Hebrew work, Maase Tobia (Venice, 1705), gives an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page 786, he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds, that he has found, in ‘A New Work on Geography,’ namely, that ‘the Africans (sic) in Great Tartary, in the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds, like the seeds of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a stem to the navel of an animal which is called Borametz in their language, i.e. lamb, on account of its resembling a lamb in all its limbs, from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its wool is adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its head, which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a cubit and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its taste is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it lives as long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which it derives its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal also dies away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except the wolf, which seeks to destroy it.’ The author concludes by expressing his belief that this account of the animal having the shape of a lamb is more likely to be true than it is of human form.”

As I have said, there are several delineations of this Borametz or Borometz, but there is one, a frontispiece to the 1656 edition of the Paridisi in Sole—Paradisus Terrestris, of John Parkinson, Apothecary of London, in which, together with Adam and Eve, the lamb-tree is shown as flourishing in the Garden of Eden; and Du Bartas, in

“His divine Weekes And Workes” in his poem of Eden, (the first day of the second week), makes Adam to take a tour of Eden, and describes his wonder at what he sees, especially at the “lamb-plant.”

“Musing, anon through crooked Walks he wanders,

Round-winding rings, and intricate Meanders,

Fals-guiding paths, doubtfull beguiling strays,

And right-wrong errors of an end-less Maze:

Not simply hedged with a single border

Of Rosemary, cut-out with curious order,

In Satyrs, Centaurs, Whales, and half-men-Horses,

And thousand other counterfaited corses;

But with true Beasts, fast in the ground still sticking,

Feeding on grass, and th’ airy moisture licking:

Such as those Bonarets, in Scythia bred

Of slender seeds, and with green fodder fed;

Although their bodies, noses, mouthes and eys,

Of new-yean’d Lambs have full the form and guise;

And should be very Lambs, save that (for foot)

Within the ground they fix a living root,

Which at their navell growes, and dies that day

That they have brouz’d the neighbour grass away.

O wondrous vertue of God onely good!

The Beast hath root, the Plant hath flesh and blood

The nimble Plant can turn it to and fro;

The nummed Beast can neither stir nor go:

The Plant is leaf-less, branch-less, void of fruit;

The Beast is lust-less, sex-less, fire-less, mute;

The Plant with Plants his hungry panch doth feed;

Th’ admired Beast is sowen a slender seed.”

Of the other kind of “lamb-tree,” that which bears lambs in pods, we have an account, in Sir John Maundeville’s Travels. “Whoso goeth from Cathay to Inde, the high and the low, he shal go through a Kingdom that men call Cadissen, and it is a great lande, there groweth a manner of fruite as it were gourdes, and when it is ripe men cut it a sonder, and men fynde

therein a beast as it were of fleshe and bone and bloud, as it were a lyttle lambe without wolle, and men eate the beaste and fruite also, and sure it seemeth very strange.”

And in the “Journall of Frier Odoricus,” which I have incorporated in my edition of “The Voiage and Travayle of Syr John Maundeville, Knight,” he says: “I was informed also by certaine credible persons of another miraculous thing, namely, that in a certaine Kingdome of the sayd Can, wherein stand the mountains called Kapsei (the Kingdomes name is Kalor) there groweth great Gourds or Pompions, (pumpkins) which being ripe, doe open at the tops, and within them is found a little beast like unto a yong lambe.”