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24 
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and incieafes to the fize of a man's arm or leg, covered with a tlackifh 
colom-ed bark, and near the top befet "with many ftrong rigid fibres ; 
the internal fubftance is white, flefhy, and abounds with a thick 
milky juice, yielding an exceffively ftrong fetid alliaceous fmell ; 
ftalk 
fimple, eredl:, ftraight 
; the 
d, fmooth, ftriated, herbaceous. 
about fix or feven inches in circumference at the bafe, and rifes 
luxuriantly to the height of two or three yards, or higher;* radical 
leaves fix or feven, near two feet long, bipinnated, pinnulse alternate^ 
fmooth, varioufly finuated, lobed, and fometimes lance-lhaped, of a 
deep green colour, and fetid fmell ; the umbels are compound, piano- 
terminal, and confift of many radii : the feeds . are oval, flat, 
foliaceo 
of 
J ^ 
■ — ^ 
gitudinal 
ddifh brown colour. 
gh, marked 
with three 
have a porraceous fmell, and a fharp bitter tafte 
not fee, but fuppofes them in number five 
the petals Kaempfer did 
minute, and white 
This plant is faid to vary much according to. the fituation and foil 
in which it grows, not only in the fliape of the leaves, but in the pe- 
culiar naufeous quality of the juice wrhich impregnates, them 
becomes fo far altered that they are fometimes eaten by the go 
Afafoetida is the concrete juice of 
of this pi 
which 
procured in the following manner on the mountains in the provinces 
At that feafon of the year when 
of Choraf 
and Laar in Perfia 
are feleded 
for 
/ 
the leaves begin to decay, the oldeft 
this purpofe. Firft the firm earth which encompaffes the root, is 
rendered light by digging, and part of it cleared away, fo as to leave 
a portion of the upper part of the root above the ground ; the leaves 
and ftalk are then twifted off and ufed with other vegetables for a 
covering to fcreen it from the fun, and upon this covering a ftone is 
placed to prevent the winds from blowing it down ; ii\ this ftate the 
root is left for forty days, after, which the covering is removed, and 
the top of the root cut off tranfverfely; it is then fcreened again from 
the fun for forty-eight tiours,^ which is thought a fufficient time for 
the juice to exude upon the wounded furface of the root, when the 
juice is fcraped off by a proper inftrument, and expofed to the fun 
Caulis^ in orgj-jas, fefquiorgyjse, 
eraffit? in imo quanta manus complexum fuperat. 
z" 
tudinem luxuriofe 
Uf^efcit & nunquam fecatur 
to 
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