The Pomegranate belongs to the family of plants called Lythraceae. This family has about three hundred and fifty species which are widely distributed, but are most abundant in tropical regions, especially in America. In describing the tree Dr. Oliver R. Willis gives the following characteristics: “Branches straight, strong, sub-angular, armed near the ends with spines; young shoots and buds red. Leaves opposite or fascicled, short-stalked, and without stipules. Flowers large, solitary, or two or three together in the axils of the leaves, near the ends of the branchlets. A beautiful object for planted grounds.”
POMEGRANATE.
(Punica granatum)
⅔ Life-size.
The color of the flowers, which develop on the ends of the younger branches, is a deep and rich scarlet or crimson. Many variations have been produced by growing the plants from seeds and one of these bears white flowers. The petals are rounded and usually crumpled.
The fruit, which is a berry about the size of an ordinary orange, is when fresh usually of a reddish yellow color, becoming brownish in drying. The rind is thick and leathery, and encloses a quantity of pulp which is filled with a refreshing juice that is acid. It is of a pinkish or reddish color, and encloses the numerous angular seeds. Probably the chief value of the plant lies in the use of the fruit as a relish, though the rind of the fruit and the bark of the root are used in medicine.
The bark contains a large amount of tannin and from it there is also obtained a bright yellow dye, which is used to produce the yellow Levant Morocco.
In regions without frost the tree is often grown for ornamental purposes.
FISHES AND FISH-CULTURE AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
Greek mythology shows us that for a long time, perhaps many centuries, the ancestors of the Greeks knew but very little about the sea or about rivers. The numerous monsters of the sea, products of the imagination, combined in their forms the parts of marine and land animals, including man. The angry waves suggested to them some creature that was wroth; in the ocean depths what more likely to be found than the caverns empty and dry, the homes of the monsters with which they had peopled it? Their knowledge of the sea was of very slow growth. It was yet a divine thing in Homer’s time, who lived just before the dawn of history. Their knowledge of marine life had made but little if any greater advance than their knowledge of the sea itself. The people of Homer make no use whatever of fish. We do not find a word indicating that either noble or slave ate fish, although the bill of fare in the Homeric household is given to us with considerable fullness.
Passing over two centuries or more to the Athens of Pericles’ time, we will find that a great change has been wrought. Fish is now the daintiest viand that comes into the Athenian market. The fishing industry has developed and grown to immense proportions. The fishmonger has taken on a character which seems destined to be eternal. Till this day it has suffered no change except that he has transferred to his wife some of the traits that once were his.