With regard to the Ficus, Forlong remarks that others besides Jews have seen divers reasons why it is said to have been the first covering used by the human race. "The symbolic trefoil or _fleur de lys_ with its seed springing from its stems, is still used as a Phallic ornament, and the leaf, especially of the Bo, is very like the old form of Ph: it has a long attenuated point, and is ever quivering on the stillest days. The tree has many peculiarities, not only in its leaves and modes of leafing, but in its fruit and modes of multiplying, which could not fail to make it of a very holy and important character in the pious, poetical and imaginative mind of the East. Among others the fruit or seed hangs direct from its limbs, yet it is commonly said to be germinated by seed from heaven; birds carry off the seed and deposit it on all high places, and in the trunks of other trees; these this Ficus splits asunder and entwines itself all around, descending by the parent trunk as well as aerially, by dropping suckers until it reaches _Mother-Earth_, by which time it has most likely killed the parent tree, which has up to that period nourished it. Thus the Ficus tribe is often hollow in the centre, and if the hollow exist near the base, it is always a very holy spot where will usually be found a Lingam or Yoni stone, or both, or a temple of Matra-Deva--Deva or Siva--the great God of Creation."[5] "In a country like India, anything that offers a cool shelter from the burning rays of the sun is regarded with a feeling of grateful respect. The wide-spreading Banyan tree is planted and nursed with care, only because it offers a shelter to many a weary traveller. Extreme usefulness of the thing is the only motive perceivable in the careful rearing of other trees. They are protected by religious injunctions, and the planting of them is encouraged by promises of eternal bliss in the future world. The injunction against injuring a banyan or fig tree is so strict, that in the Ramayana even Rávana, an unbeliever, is made to say 'I have not cut down any fig tree, in the month of Vaisakha, why then does the calamity (alluding to the several defeats his army sustained in the war with Rámachandra and to the loss of his sons and brothers) befall me?'" The medicinal properties of many plants soon attracted notice, and were cultivated with much care. With the illiterate the medicinal virtues of a drug are increased with its scarcity; and to enhance its value it was soon associated with difficulties, and to keep it secret from public knowledge, it was culled in the dark and witching hours of night. Trees have frequently been identified with gods: thus in the Panma Purána, the religious fig tree is an incarnation of Vishnu, the Indian fig tree of Rudra, and the Palasa of Brahma.