ASAFCETIDA 355 



Shahrokia. 1 We do not know, however, what species here come into 

 question. 



Cao 2u-kwa states that the home of asafoetida is in Mu-ku-lan 

 /fc ^ SB, in the country of the Ta-§i (Ta-d2ik, Arabs). 2 Mu-ku-lan is 

 identical with Mekran, the Gedrosia of the ancients, the Maka of 

 the Old-Persian inscriptions. Alexander the Great crossed Gedrosia 

 on his campaign to India, and we should expect that his scientific staff, 

 which has left us so many valuable contributions to the flora of Iran 

 and north-western India, might have also observed the plant furnishing 

 asafoetida; in the floristic descriptions of the Alexander literature, how- 

 ever, nothing can be found that could be interpreted as referring to 

 this species. H. Bretzl 3 has made a forcible attempt to identify a 

 plant briefly described by Theophrastus, 4 with Scorodosma joetidum; 

 and A. Hort, 5 in his new edition and translation of Theophrastus, has 

 followed him. The text runs thus: "There is another shrub [in Aria] 

 as large as a cabbage, whose leaf is like that of the bay in size and 

 shape. And if any animal should eat this, it is certain to die of it. 

 Wherefore, wherever there were horses, they kept them under control" 

 [that is, in Alexander's army]. This in no way fits the properties of 

 Ferula or Scorodosma, which is non-poisonous, and does not hurt any 

 animal. It is supposed also that the laserpitium or silphion and laser 

 of Pliny 6 should, at least partially, relate to asafoetida; this, however, 

 is rejected by some authors, and appears to me rather doubtful. Garcia 

 da Orta 7 has already denied any connection between that plant of the 

 ancients and asa. L. Leclerc 8 has discussed at length this much-dis- 

 puted question. 



The first European author who made an exact report of asafoetida 



1 Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, Vol. II, pp. 193, 254. The inter- 

 pretation of lu-wei ("rushes") as asafoetida in the Si yu ki (ibid., Vol. I, p. 85) seems 

 to me a forced and erroneous interpretation. 



* Hirth and Rockhill, Chao Ju-kua, p. 224. 



3 Botanische Forschungen des Alexanderzuges, p. 285. 



4 Histor. plant., IV. iv, 12. 

 s Vol. I, p. 321. 



6 xix, 15. The Medic juice, called silphion, and mentioned as a product of 

 Media by Strabo (XL xm, 7), might possibly allude to a product of the nature 01 

 asafoetida, especially as it is said in another passage (XV. 11, 10) that silphion grew 

 in great abundance in the deserts of Bactriana, and promoted the digestion of the 

 raw flesh on which Alexander's soldiers were forced to subsist there. According to 

 others, the silphion of the ancients is Thapsia garganica (Engler, Pflanzenfamilien, 

 Vol. Ill, pt. 8, p. 247). Regarding the Medic oil (oleum Medicum) see Ammianus 

 Marcellinus, xxm, 6. 



7 C. Markham, Colloquies, p. 44. 



8 Traits des simples, Vol. I, p. 144. 



