ASPEN OR TREMBLING POPLAR.

(THE MULBERRY-TREE OF SCRIPTURE.)

(Populus tremula.)

"The sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees."-2 Sam. v. 24.

\HE Hebrew word Becaim has been translated mulberry trees. It

THE

is the plural of the word Baca, which occurs in Psalm lxxxiv. 6. It is supposed by able commentators that the trees noticed under these names were poplars, several species of which occur in the Holy Land. Kitto says, "We know that the black poplar, the aspen, and the Lombardy poplar grew in Palestine. The aspen, whose long and flat leaf-stalks cause the leaves to tremble with every breath of wind, unites with the willow and oak in overshadowing the water-courses of Lower Lebanon, and with the oleander and acacia in adorning the ravines of Southern Palestine. The Lombardy poplar is described as growing with the walnut-trees and weeping-willow under the deep torrents of the Upper Lebanon." The Arabic word Bak, which means Poplar, is very similar to the Hebrew Baca.

The aspen (Populus tremula of botanists) is supposed to be the tree indicated by the Hebrew words we have noticed. The quaking of its leaves has given origin to the name of trembling poplar, which is applied to it. The moving of the leaves seems to be referred to in the following passage:-" And the Philistines came up yet again, and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them

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ASPEN OR TREMBLING POPLAR.

over against the mulberry-trees [becaim]. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself" (2 Sam. v. 23, 24; 1 Chron. xiv. 14, 15).

The poplar gave the name to the valley of Baca, which is sometimes called the Valley of Weeping. Here the tree was associated with the willow and other plants which delight in a moist soil: "Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools" (Psalm lxxxiv. 6). In this shady valley the traveller to Zion was refreshed by the wells and pools of water.

The aspen belongs to the class Diœcia, order Octandria of the Linnean system, and to the natural order Salicaceæ, the Willow family. The plants of the order have their flowers in catkins, and their seeds covered with silky hairs. The trembling of the aspen leaf in the slightest breeze seems to depend on the flattening of the petiole or leaf-stalk in a vertical direction. The tree extends to northern countries, and is found in the alpine districts of Scotland.