Almond

ALMOND, Amygdalus communi

THE almond is an emblem of haste, for its flowers appear before the leaves are ready. In the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah we read: "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it". Allusions to the almond tree occur in other places in the Divine record. The presents sent by Israel to Joseph, in the second journey into Egypt, when Benjamin was taken, included "a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds". The almond was one of the subjects selected for the decoration of the golden candlestick of beaten work that was to be employed in the tabernacle and the symbol obtained special significance when the rod of Aaron, in the tabernacle of witness, brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. These passages testify to the importance of the tree in Palestine, of which it is a native; and they suggest an inheritance of ideas from the further East, for the almond has a considerable range in Arabia and Persia. To be valued for its fruit by nomads little given to cultivation was a matter of necessity. But we are taken into the region of true poetry when it is perceived that the acceptance of the almond as a symbol under Divine sanction turns upon its flowering first amongst all the trees of the wood, and in such haste that it cannot wait to appear in its proper garments. To the Oriental mind, sensitive to imagery, and leaning to the ideal in the observation of nature, such simple facts are pregnant with deeper meanings than Western thought is capable of grasping without an effort.

But in these less fanciful lands the almond does not escape such honours as poets can bestow. Spenser crowns the great Arthur with the bloom of the immortal tree by means of a splendid figure:-