This vegetable salamander finds its equal in a plant described by Nieuhoff as growing in rocky and stony places in the kingdom of Tanju, in Tartary. This extraordinary plant cannot be either ignited or consumed by fire; for although it becomes hot, and on account of the heat becomes glowing red in the fire, yet so soon as heat is removed, it grows cold, and regains its former appearance: in water, however, this plant is wont to become quite putrid. Of a nature somewhat akin to these fire-loving plants must be the Japanese Palm, described by A. Montanus. This tree is said to shun moisture to such an extent, that if its trunk be in the least wet, it at once pines away and perishes as though it had been poisoned. However, if this arid tree be taken up by the roots, throughly dried in the sun, and re-planted with sand and iron filings around it, it will once more flourish, and become covered with new branches and leaves, provided that so soon as it has been re-planted, the old leaves are cut off with an iron instrument and fastened to the trunk. The Bishop remarks that “one of the most wonderful plants is that which so mollifies the bones, that when we have eaten of it we cannot stand upon our legs. An ox who has tasted of it cannot go; his bones grow so pliant, that you may bend his legs like a twig of Ozier. The remedy is to make him swallow some of the bones of an animal who died from eating of that herb: ’tis certain death, and cannot be otherwise, for the teeth grow soft immediately, and ’tis impossible even to eat again.” “There is a plant that produces a totally opposite effect. It hardens the bones to a wondrous degree. A man who has chewed some of it, will have his teeth so hard as to be able to reduce flints and pebbles into impalpable powder.” Maundevile describes some wonderful Balm-trees that in his time grew near Cairo, in a field wherein were seven wells “that oure Lord Jesu Christ made with on of His feet, whan He wente to pleyen with other children.” The balm obtained from these trees was considered so precious, that no one but the appointed tenders was allowed to approach them. Christians alone were permitted to till the ground in which they grew, as if Saracens were employed, the trees would not yield; and moreover it was necessary that men should “kutten the braunches with a scharp flyntston or with a scharp bon, whanne men wil go to kutte hem: For who so kutte hem with iren, it wolde destroye his vertue and his nature.” The old knight has left a record of his impressions of the country near the shores of the Dead Sea, and has given a sketch of those Apple-trees of which Byron wrote-- “Like to the Apples on the Dead Sea’s shore, All ashes to the taste.”