Acacia
(Heb. shittim) Ex. 25:5, R.V. probably the Acacia seyal (the gum-arabic tree); called the "shittah" tree (Isa. 41:19). Its wood is called shittim wood (Ex. 26:15, 26; 25:10, 13, 23, 28, etc.). This species (A. seyal) is like the hawthorn, a gnarled and thorny tree. It yields the gum-arabic of commerce. It is found in abundance in the Sinaitic peninsula.
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Dictionary
Shittah-tree
(Isa. 41:19; R.V., "acacia tree"). Shittah wood was employed in making the various parts of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and must therefore have been indigenous in the desert in which the Israelites wandered. It was the acacia or mimosa (Acacia Nilotica and A. seyal). "The wild acacia (Mimosa Nilotica), under the name of sunt, everywhere represents the seneh, or senna, of the burning bush. A slightly different form of the tree, equally common under the name of seyal, is the ancient 'shittah,' or, as more usually expressed in the plural form, the 'shittim,' of which the tabernacle was made." Stanley's Sinai, etc. (Ex. 25:10, 13, 23, 28).
Dictionary
Bdellium
Occurs only in Gen. 2:12, where it designates a product of the land of Havilah; and in Num. 11:7, where the manna is likened to it in colour. It was probably an aromatic gum like balsam which exuded from a particular tree (Borassus flabelliformis) still found in Arabia, Media, and India. It bears a resemblance in colour to myrrh. Others think the word denotes "pearls," or some precious stone.
Dictionary
Gourd
(1.) Jonah's gourd (Jonah 4:6-10), bearing the Hebrew name kikayon (found only here), was probably the kiki of the Egyptians, the croton. This is the castor-oil plant, a species of ricinus, the palma Christi, so called from the palmate division of its leaves. Others with more probability regard it as the cucurbita the el-keroa of the Arabs, a kind of pumpkin peculiar to the East. "It is grown in great abundance on the alluvial banks of the Tigris and on the plain between the river and the ruins of Nineveh." At the present day it is trained to run over structures of mud and brush to form boots to protect the gardeners from the heat of the noon-day sun. It grows with extraordinary rapidity, and when cut or injured withers away also with great rapidity. (2.) Wild gourds (2 Kings 4:38-40), Heb. pakkuoth, belong to the family of the cucumber-like plants, some of which are poisonous. The species here referred to is probably the colocynth (Cucumis colocynthus). The LXX. render the word by "wild pumpkin." It abounds in the desert parts of Syria, Egypt, and Arabia. There is, however, another species, called the Cucumis prophetarum, from the idea that it afforded the gourd which "the sons of the prophets" shred by mistake into their pottage.
Dictionary
Heath
Heb. arar, (Jer. 17:6; 48:6), a species of juniper called by the Arabs by the same name (arar), the Juniperus sabina or savin. "Its gloomy, stunted appearance, with its scale-like leaves pressed close to its gnarled stem, and cropped close by the wild goats, as it clings to the rocks about Petra, gives great force to the contrast suggested by the prophet, between him that trusteth in man, naked and destitute, and the man that trusteth in the Lord, flourishing as a tree planted by the waters" (Tristram, Natural History of the Bible).
Dictionary
Spicery
Heb. nechoth, identified with the Arabic naka'at, the gum tragacanth, obtained from the astralagus, of which there are about twenty species found in Palestine. The tragacanth of commerce is obtained from the A. tragacantha. "The gum exudes plentifully under the heat of the sun on the leaves, thorns, and exteremity of the twigs."
Dictionary
Sycamine tree
Mentioned only in Luke 17:6. It is rendered by Luther "mulberry tree" (q.v.), which is most probably the correct rendering. It is found of two species, the black mulberry (Morus nigra) and the white mulberry (Mourea), which are common in Palestine. The silk-worm feeds on their leaves. The rearing of them is one of the chief industries of the peasantry of Lebanon and of other parts of the land. It is of the order of the fig-tree. Some contend, however, that this name denotes the sycamore-fig of Luke 19:4.