522 
AMYRIS GILEADENSIS. BALSAM of GILEAD AMYRIS. 
Balfamum Gileadenfe. Pharm. Edinb. Conf. Bruce s Travels 
to dif cover the Source of the Nile. Appendix, p. 16, Belon. Obfer- 
vations de plufieures Jingularitez trouvees en Grece-Arabie^ &c. Lib. 
, 39. p. no. Alpinus, in Lib. de plantis JEgypti, p. Afi.jig 
60. Forfkal Flor. iEgyptiaco-Arab. p. 79. Bauh. Pin. p. 400 
Gerard. Emac. p. 1528. Park. Tbeat. p. 1528. 
Clafs O&andria. Ord. Monogynia. Lin. Gen. Plant. 473. 
- 
EJf. Gen, Oh. Cal. 4-dentatus. Petala 4. oblonga. Stigma tetragonum 
Bacca drupacea. 
Sp. Cb. A. foliis ternatis integerrimis, pedunculis unifloris lateralibus. 
ACCORDING to Mr. Bruce the BalefTan or Balm-tree grows to 
the height of fourteen feet : its branches are numerous, fpreading, 
crooked ; the wood is white, foft, and covered with a fmooth afh- 
coloured bark : the leaves are fmall, few, commonly confining of one 
pair of pinnae, with an odd one at the top : the pinnse are feffile, 
inverfely ovate, entire, veined, and of a bright green colour: the 
flowers are fcattered upon the branches, and are of a white colour : 
the calyx is permanent, and divided at the brim into four fmall 
pointed teeth : the petals are four, oblong, concave, patent, white : the 
filaments are eight, tapering, erecl:, and terminated by oblong antheras : 
the germen is egg-fhaped, and placed above the infertion of the corolla : 
the ftyle is thick, of the length of the filaments, and terminated by a 
quadrangular ftigma : the fruit is of the drupaceous kind, roundifh, 
opening by four valves, and containing a fmooth nut. 
Mr. Bruce informs us, that Balm-tree is a native of Abyflinia, growing 
among the myrrh-trees behind Azab, all along the coaft, to the Straits 
of Babelmandeb ; and that it was early tranfplanted into the South 
of Arabia, and into Judea 1 000 years before the Queen of Saba, who 
according to Jofephus, gave this tree, among other prefents, to King 
Solomon 
Theophraftus 
^ 
