Mr. RoyLE on the Lycium of Dioscorides. 91 
ported from the hills into the plains, and that large quantities continued 
to be brought from Nuggur-kote as well as other places. 
While travelling in the Himalayas, I continued my inquiries on the subject, 
and on wishing to be shown the plant which produced the wood called dar- 
huld, as well as that from which the ruso? was procured, species of Barberry 
were immediately pointed out; and I was told that both the wood and the 
extract were procured indifferently from Berberis asiatica, B. aristata, and 
B. Lycium, as well as from B. pinnata, the Mahonia nepalensis of De Candolle. 
On cutting into the wood of each, and having some converted into extract, I 
found both to correspond in every respect with the wood and the extract which 
I had bought in the plains under the names of dar-huld and rusot. 
As the above plants, (with the exception of B. Lycium, for the characters of 
which the reader is referred to the end of this article,) have been fully described 
by De Candolle in his Systema Vegetabilium, and as B. asiatica and Mahonia 
nepalensis are figured in the Ist and 3rd Plates of the 2nd volume of Jcones 
Selectce Plantarum of the Baron De Lessert, and Berberis aristata in Plate 98 
of Dr. Hooker's Exotic Flora, it is unnecessary to dwell on their botanical cha- 
racters. It may be interesting, however, to remark, that B. Lycium is found 
as low as 3000 feet, B. asiatica grows naturally in 30^ of latitude, at elevations 
of from 5000 to 7000 feet, B. aristata at from 5000 to 8000 feet, and B. pinnata 
is prevalent at from 6000 to 7000 feet above the level of the sea; and it may 
also be observed, that the French traveller Leschenault de la Tour found 
Berberis tinctoria, which is considered in the work of De Lessert to be the 
same as Berberis asiatica, on the Neel-gherris, in 11° of latitude, at 8000 feet 
of elevation, and that there also it is brought into use. ^E ligno corticeque 
elicitur color luteus, czeteris praestantior." De Candolle, in the Addenda to the 
2nd volume of his Systema Vegetabilium, describes it as * Lignum flavissimum, 
amarissimum." 
It was observed in a former part of this paper as remarkable that there 
appeared to be no traces of any description of the Barberry in Dioscorides. I 
was anxious, therefore, to ascertain if the Arabians and Persians had alluded 
to it; and I adduce the following curious and good specimen of their mode 
of describing a plant, of which there do not seem to be any traces in their 
Greek originals. 
N 2 
