Greeks, the Nardoom of the Latins, the Balcher of the 
Hindoos, and the Jatamansi in Sanscrit. 
Nardostachys Jatamansi abounds in the loftier regions of 
the whole Central and Eastern Himalaya, extending from 
Kumaon to Bhotan, at elevations of 11,000 to 17,000 feet, 
inhabiting stony places, and varying in stature and amount 
of odour according to the elevation, specimens from low 
levels attaining twenty-eight inches in height, with larger 
leaves and flowers and faintly-scented rhizomes, whilst the 
more Alpine forms are dwarf, more slender, smaller 
flowered, with very strongly-scented rhizomes. The odour 
of the plant is heavy, but not wholly disagreeable, and 
though, like similar semifoetid drugs, highly appreciated by 
Orientals, it could never find favour amongst the Western 
nations of Hurope. The rhizomes are collected in abun- 
dance by the natives of the hills, and used throughout the 
Kast in a dried state in unguents and as a drug; no 
allusion, is, however, made to it in Drury’s ‘‘ Useful Plants 
of India.” 2 
The species here figured flowered in the Herbaceous 
Ground of the Royal Garden in September, 1878, for the 
first time in Europe, I believe. 
Descr. Root fusiform, inclined, terminating upwards in 
a simple or forked ascending stock one to three inches © 
long, densely clothed with the black fibrous remains of the 
old petioles. Leaves tufted, two to four inches long, rarely 
longer, elliptic-lanceolate or spathulate, acute, nerves 
obscure, narrowed into a long or short petiole. Scape four 
to ten inches high, with one pair of small sessile leaves 
about the middle. Flowers a quarter of an inch broad, in 
dense small heads, which are arranged in a trichotomously- 
branched terminal panicle. Calyx pubescent ; lobes ovate, 
connate at the bases, acute, enlarged and reticulate in fruit. 
Corolla pale rose-purple, one-third of an inch long, cylindric, 
gibbous at the base and contracted into a very short narrow 
tube ; lobes rounded, dorsal larger. Filaments hairy. Style 
filiform ; stigma simple. Fruit compressed, one-seeded, 
three-celled.— J. D. H, 
Fig. 1, Bract, calyx, and style ; 2, corolla; 3, the same laid open; 4, stamen; 5, 
ovary laid open ; 6, ovary cut transversely ; 7, fruit; 8, empty cells of ditto; 9, 
section of fruit showing the seed; 10, 11, and 12, seed; 13, embryo; 14, transverse 
section of ditto :—all enlarged. 
