Dr. Falconer on the AsafcEtida Plant of Central Asia. 289 



sian language, and referred to the medicinal accounts of the plant given by 

 the Persian and Arabic authors. The Dardohs, who are a wild and rude race, 

 do not collect the gum-resin for exportation. The plant does not occur in 

 great abundance in Astore, which appears to be the extreme point of the 

 north-eastern range of the species. At different elevations of the same valley, 

 or its branches, I found Prangos pabularia, two species of Pyrola, Pinus 

 Gerardlana, together with species of Bupleurum, Statice, Ribes, Podophyllum, 

 Epipactis, Sambucus, &c. 



Like Ksempfer, I have never seen the plant in flower ; when I met with it, 

 it was dried up and in ripe fruit, the leaves withered, and the stems damaged 

 by cattle. I secured a quantity of the fruit-bearing umbels, and the withered 

 stalks and leaves, among which there were some partial umbels of barren 

 flowers with an occasional petal remaining. The account of the petals is in 

 consequence given in the description with doubt. Some young roots were 

 carefully removed and introduced, in the first instance into the Botanic Gar- 

 den at Saharunpoor, and afterwards transferred to the subsidiary Hill Garden 

 at the Himalayan Station of Mussooree. Some of these roots succeeded well, 

 without however flowering, up to the period when I left India; one of them 

 having furnished a small quantity of Asafoetida, which differed in no respect 

 from the ordinary condition of the gum-resin as it occurs in commerce. This 

 circumstance is mentioned in Dr. Royle's ' Productive Resources of India,' 

 p. 223. These materials combined have furnished the description given 

 above. I left a commission with Ahud Meerza, a native friend in Cash- 

 meer, to procure for me the following season from Astore specimens of the 

 plant in flower ; this he was unable to accomplish, but he forwarded to me a 

 large quantity of fresh seeds from the same locality, which reached me in De- 

 cember 1839, and were transmitted to the India House, whence they were 

 distributed to several gardens by Dr. Royle. Some of these seeds, I have 

 been informed, have been grown in the Botanical Garden at Edinburgh. 



The evidence here adduced I believe to be conclusive as to the true plant 

 which produces the " Heeng," or Asafoetida of commerce, the " Laser" of 

 Pliny as distinguished from the ottoc Kv/oijvai'/coc of the Greeks from Cyrene. 

 The species would appear to occur in the greatest abundance in the provinces 

 of Khorassan and Laar in Persia, and thence to extend, on the one hand, into 



