6 STYRACINEJE. I. Sryrax. 
Koom-jameva is the Bengaleese name of the tree. Leaves 3 
inches long. Corolla 6-cleft. Drupe 1-4-seeded. 
Serrulated-leaved storax. Shrub. 
27 S. Bewzorn (Dryand. in trans. roy. soc. 77. p. 307. t. 12. 
Woodv. med. bot. p. 200. t. 72.) leaves ovate-oblong, acumi- 
nated, glabrous above, but clothed with leprous tomentum be- 
neath, as well as the calyxes; racemes compound almost the 
length of the leaves; flowers with 7-9-10-stamens. bh. S. 
Native of Sumatra and Java. Church. & Stev. med. bot. 3. 
t. 112. Blum. bijdr. p. 671. Plench, icon. t. 342. Benjüi, Garc. in 
Clus. exot. p. 155. A'rbor. Benzoini, Grim. in ephem. acad. nat. 
cur. dec. 2. ann. 1. p. 370. f. 31. Benzóin, Radermacher, in act. 
Soc. batav. 3. p. 44. Laürus Benzóin Houtt. in act. harlem. vol. 
21. p. 265. t. 7. Benjamin or Benzoin, Marsden, Sumatra, p. 123. 
Luban is the Bengalese name of the resin. Leaves a hand long. 
Corolla white, downy outside; segments linear.— Though Gar- 
cias, Grim and Sylvias were acquainted with the real tree from 
which Benzoin is collected, their descriptions are so imperfect 
that succeeding botanists have fallen into many errors concern- 
ing it ; and it is remarkable that, although this drug was always 
imported from the East Indies, most of the later writers on the 
Materia Medica have conceived it to be collected from a species 
of Laürus, native of Virginia, to which, from this erroneous 
supposition, they have given the trivial name Benzoin. Linnzus 
Mant. p. 297., seems to think that the drug is furnished by the 
Croton Bentzde, and afterwards, in the Supplementum Plantarum, 
p. 434, he describes the same plant again under the name of 
Terminalia Benzóin. Jacquin, who was informed that this shrub 
was called by the French, Bienjoint, may have occasioned the 
mistake, from the similar sound of the word. Mr. Dryander, 
however, in the year 1787, clearly proved it to be a species of 
Styrax. The tree is deemed in Sumatra to be of sufficient age 
in 6 years, or when the trunk is about 7 or 8 inches in dia- 
meter, to afford the Benzoin. The bark is then cut through 
longitudinally or somewhat obliquely, at the origin of the prin- 
cipal lower branches, from which the drug exudes in a liquid 
state, and by exposure to the sun and air soon concretes, when it 
is scraped off. The trees are not found to sustain the effects 
of these annual incisions longer than 10 or 12 years. The 
quantity each tree yields never exceeds 3 pounds. The Benzoin 
which issues first from the wounded bark is the purest, being soft, 
extremely fragrant, and very white ; that which is less esteemed 
is of a brownish colour, very hard, and mixed with various impu- 
rities. In Arabia, Persia, and other parts of the East, the coarser 
sort is consumed in fumigating and perfuming temples, and 
in destroying insects. The Benzoin which we find here in the 
shops is in large brittle masses, composed partly of white, partly 
of yellowish or light brown ; that which is clearest and contains 
the most white matter, is accounted the best. This resin has 
very little taste, impressing on the palate only a slight sweet- 
ness; its smell, especially when rubbed or heated, is extremely 
fragrant and agreeable. It totally dissolves in rectified spirit, 
the impurities excepted, into a deep yellow-red liquor, and in 
this state discovers a degree of warmth and pungency as well as 
sweetness. It imparts, by digestion, to water also, a consider- 
able share of its fragrance, and a slight pungency ; the filtered 
liquor, gently exhaled, leaves not a resinous or mucilaginous 
extract, but a crystalline matter, seemingly of a saline nature, 
amounting to one-tenth of an eighth of the weight of Benzoin. 
Exposed to the fire in proper vessels, it yields a quantity of 
white saline concrete, called Flores Benzoes, of an acidulous taste, 
and grateful odour, soluble in rectified spirit, and in water by 
the assistance of heat. 
As the trees which afford Storax and Benzoin, are species of 
the same genus, their products are very similar in their ex- 
ternal appearance, and not widely different in their sensible 
HALESIACEJE. I. Hatesia. 
qualities; itis therefore reasonable to suppose that they are ana- 
logous in their medicinal effects. Benzoin, however, though 
rarely employed in a simple state, has been frequently pre- 
scribed as a pectoral, and is recommended for inveterate 
coughs, asthmas, obstructions of the lungs, and all phthisical 
complaints, unattended by much fever; it has also been used 
as a cosmetic, and in the way of fumigation for the resolution 
of indolent tumours. Dr. Cullen classes benzoin with the sti- 
mulants, and says that the flores benzoes, which is the only pre- 
paration employed, are manifestly a saline substance, of an acid 
kind, of considerable acrimony and stimulant power; and 
although it has been recommended as a pectoral, he found it 
heating and hurtful in asthmatic cases in a dose of half a drachm. 
In the Pharmacopoeias the flowers are directed in the tinctura 
opi camphorata, and it is ordered in substance in the tinctura 
benzoes composita. 
Benzoin Storax. Tree. 
Cult. The hardy species of Stórax are proper plants for 
shrubberies, being very handsome when in flower. A light soil 
suits them best. The best way of increasing them is by layers 
put down in the autumn or spring. The stove and greenhouse 
species will grow freely in a mixture of loam, peat, and sand ; 
and will be easily propagated by cuttings planted in sand, under 
a hand-glass; those of the tropical species in heat. 
Orver CLXII. HALESIA‘CEZ (this order only contains 
the genus Halésia, or Snow-drop trees). D. Don, in edinb. 
phil. journ. dec. 1828. Symplocinee, part. of authors. Guaia- 
cane, part. Juss. 156. 
Calyx small, 4-toothed. Corolla monopetalous, ventricosely 
campanulate, with a 4-lobed, erect border. Stamens 12-16; 
filaments combined into a tube at the base, and adnate to the - 
corolla; anthers oblong, erect, 2-celled, dehiscing lengthwise. 
Ovarium inferior. Style 1 ; stigma simple. Drupe dry, corticate, 
oblong, with 2-4-winged angles, terminated by the permanent 
style: containing a 2-4-celled putamen, which is acute at both 
ends; cells 1-seeded ; seeds attached to the bottom of the cells ; 
testa of seeds simple, very thin. Embryo length of albumen, 
with linear-oblong cotyledons ; and a long, linear, compressed 
inferior radicle. Albumen fleshy.— Trees with alternate, serrated 
leaves; and lateral fascicles of pedicellate, drooping, white 
flowers. This order comes nearest to Symplocinee, from which 
it differs in the inferior ovarium, in the fruit being a hard, dry, 
winged nut, and in the corolla being more decidedly monopetalous. 
I. HALESIA (so named by Ellis in honour of the learned 
and venerable Stephen Hales, D.D. F.R.S., author of Veget- 
able Staticks in 1722). Ellis in Lin. gen. no. 596. Geertn. 
fruct. 1. p. 160. t. 32. Juss. gen. 156. 
Lin. syst. Dodecándria, Monogynia. 
as the order. 
1 H. TETRA'PTERA (Lin. spec. 636. Ellis in phil. trans. 
vol. 51. p. 931. t. 22. f. A.) leaves ovate-lanceolate, acuminated, 
sharply serrated; petioles glandular ; fruit with 4 wings. h. H. 
Native of South Carolina, along the banksof rivers, Curt. bot. 
mag. 910. Lodd. bot. cab. 1173. Cav. diss. 6. p. 338. t. 186. 
Lam. ill. 404. Leaves acuminated, with the middle depressed. 
Flowers pure white, 9-10 in a fascicle, drooping, resembling 
those of the snow-drop. The wood is hard and veined; the 
bark is of a darkish colour, with many irregular fissures. 
Four-winged-fruited Halesia, or Common Snow-drop Tree. 
Fl. April, May. Clt. 1756. Tree 15 to 20 feet. 
2 H. raRvirLóRA (Michx. fl. amer. bor. 2. p. 40.) leaves 
Character the same 
