ON SOME CONIFERS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 249
committal word 'Unkraut.' His trouble was that the Latin
version gave him no help : it merely repeats the word Zizania
used in the Greek version. The equivalent word in the original
Psitta version Sir E. Denison Ross tells me is KUVEI, which
scholars translate "thorns or tares." The reason for the former
rendering is that KUVIN is the Aramaic word for 'thorns' ;
the reason for the second rendering, to an English reader, is
obvious. But we may assume that the author of the Greek
version knew the plant referred to in the parable as well as he
knew Greek, though it is clear that if he knew the plant he did
not know its Greek name. In rendering KUVEI as ζιζάνια,
a word he was the first to add to that language, he was content
to give a Hellenic form to a name he already knew. The word
he chose was ziz.a.an, which, as we have seen, was the Sumerian
name for the Assyrian ŝμ, the Greek ζεία, the Latin far,
and the Celtic 'Emmer.' If this be so, a parable whose spiritual
purpose has always been appreciated, but whose material basis
has often appeared unintelligible, becomes perfectly plain.
ON SOME
CONIFERS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.
By G. LISTER, F.L.S.
[Read 30th January, 1932.]
THE Conifer Conference held by the Royal Horticultural
Society in London last November was associated with
what was probably the finest and most extensive exhibition of
conifers that has ever been brought together in this country.
Healthy living plants of choice species, some as tall as twelve
feet, had been brought over from Ireland from the Marquis of
Hedfort's renowned gardens at Kells in County Meath ; tender
plants from warm climates were shown from the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew: while numerous business firms and private
owners exhibited both living plants and cut specimens, grown
out of doors in England, Wales and Scotland. They were
arranged in a very effective and instructive manner in the
Society's Great Hall. When the exhibition closed the cut
specimens were distributed to various museums and teaching