the CAROB TREE, or St John's-bread: A genus of the polyzycia order, belonging to the polygamy class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 33d order, Lomentaceae. The calyx is hermaphrodite and quinquepartite; there is no corolla; the stamens are five; the style is filiform; the legumen coriaceous and polyspermous. It is also dioecious, or male and female distinct on different plants. There is but one species, the filique, a native of Spain, of some parts of Italy, and the Levant. It is an ever-green; and, in the countries where it is native, grows in the hedges. It produces a quantity of long, flat, brown-coloured pods, which are thick, mealy, and of a sweetish taste. These pods are many times eaten by the poorer sort of inhabitants when there is a scarcity of other food; but they are apt to loosen the belly, and cause gripings of the bowels. They are called St John's-bread, from an ill-founded assertion of some writers on Scripture, that these pods were the locusts St John eat with his honey in the wilderness. The tree may be propagated in this country from seeds, which are to be sown in a moderate hot-bed, and the plants insured to the open air by degrees.