Jonah 4:6

The Lord God prepared an ivy. Hederam. In the Hebrew it is kikajon, which some render a gourd; others a palmerist, or palma Christi. (Challoner) --- This latter is now the common opinion. St.Jerome explains it of a shrub growing very fast in the sandy places of Palestine. He did not pretend (Calmet) that hedera, or ivy, as Aquila translates, (Haydock) was the precise import; but he found no Latin term more resembling, (Calmet) as he observes here and in his letter to St. Augustine, who had informed him that a certain bishop of Africa having read his version publicly, the audience was surprised at the change; and the Jews, "either through ignorance or malice," decided in favour of the old Greek and Latin version of gourd, which [the] Protestants retain. (Haydock) --- But this does not grow so soon no more than the ivy. The palma Christi, or ricinus, does. The Egyptians call it kiki, and the Greeks selicy prion. See Pliny, [Natural History?] xv. 7. Its foliage is thick, and its trunk hollow. (Calmet) --- But how came St. Jerome to be unacquainted with this plant? or why did he substitute one false name for another?