ey, ee 
. 
Tas. 5168. 
NARTHEX Asaratipa. 
Asafetida. 
Nat. Ord. UMBELLIFERZ.—PENTANDRIA DiGyYNIA. 
Gen. Char. Calycis margo obsoletus. Petala oblonga, apice una inflexa. Sty- 
lopodium urceolatum. Styli recurvi. Fructus a dorso plano-compressus, mar- 
gine dilatato; mericarpia jugis primariis 5, 3 intermediis filiformibus, 2 laterali- 
bus obsoletioribus margini contiguis immersis. Vi¢¢e in valleculis dorsalibus ; 
plerumque solitariz: (lateralibus nunc 1}-23-vittatis) ; commissuralibus 0-6, va- 
riis. Semen complanatum.—Herba gigantea Tibetica ; radice crassa, fibris inter- 
textis rigidis coronata; caule robusto, ramoso; foliis bipinnatis, laciniis lineari- 
oblongis, obtusis, integerrimis v. serratis, glabris v. pubescentibus, petiolo lato, amplo, 
vaginante, inflato; umbellis compositis ; involucris 0; floribus flavis, interdum 
unisecualibus v. sterilibus. 
NartTHEX Asafetida. ; 
NarTHEX Asafcetida. Falconer in Linn. Soc. Trans. v. 20. p. 285. 
A plant as rare as it is interesting, for the opportunity of 
figuring which we are indebted to Professor Balfour, who pub- 
lished the following record of its introduction and flowering in 
the Edinburgh Garden in the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle’ for June 
1859, p. 487. “This season another of the Asafcetida plants, Var- 
thex Asafetida, raised from seeds sent home by Sir John M‘Neill 
and Dr. Falconer, has produced a flowering stem. The specimen 
was planted out in front of the houses in the garden about five 
years ago. It began to show symptoms of developing a flower- 
ing stem at the end of February and beginning of March; none 
of the large radical leaves were produced, but the flowering axis 
shot up at once from the under-ground stem. At the time when. 
this took place none of the other specimens in the open ground 
of the garden had shown any leaves. Warned by the untimely 
fate of the plant last year, which was suddenly destroyed by an 
intense frost on 13th April, when the thermometer fell to 22°, 
Mr. M‘Nab secured the present specimen from injury by getting 
a glazed wooden frame about eight feet high erected around it, 
and connecting it with the adjoining stove so that a moderate 
degree of heat might be supplied in the event of severe frost 
MARCH Ist, 1860. 
