Orchidew.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 369 
most extensive application ; that is, ascertaining not only the temperature, but also 
the degree of moisture of climate, with all the local circumstances which control the 
natural growth of plants, before we attempt their artificial cultivation. Considering the 
number and variety of the species, as well as the extent of gratification which they 
afford to one of the senses, their utility to man, in the common acceptation of the term, 
is not of a corresponding degree. Many, however, of the Orchidee are remarkable 
for their fragrance, as exemplified in several of the East-Indian Malavidee, as well as 
in some South American Epidendra and in Mazillaria aromatica; but most conspi- 
cuously in Vanilla aromatica, the dried fruit of which is so considerable an article of 
commerce, solely on account of this property; depending on the presence of an 
essential oil and benzoic acid. Vanilla has been arranged among aromatics and 
excitant in medicine, but is chiefly useful for giving a flavour to ices and confectionary, 
as well as scent to some perfumery. 
Some of the Orchidee were in ancient times considered to be vulnerary, and are 
still stated to be so in Persian works. But the most important product of the family, 
and one which deserves to be more extensively employed as an article of diet for the 
sick or the delicate in constitution, especially children, is the nutritious matter 
secreted in the tubers of many of the Orchidee. These are well known in many places 
by the name saLep, which is sometimes corrupted into salop or saloop. They are of a 
flattened ovoid form, semi-transparent, and thought, from their appearance probably, to be 
a gum by some ancient authors, but now usually stated to consist principally of bassorine, 
some soluble gum, and a very little starch, though the analysis is not yet definitively 
settled. Salep is often stated to contain the largest quantity of nutritious matter in 
the smallest space, and that about two drachms is sufficient for an invalid’s meal. About 
sixty parts of boiling water are required to one of powdered salep to dissolve it. 
The tubers of the Orchidee have been used as medicinal agents from very early times, 
as we see from the works of Theophrastus and of Dioscorides, and their statements are 
repeated in the works of the Arabs. In these they are described under the DATE 
khusyut-al-salib and. khusyut-al-kulb, literally Testiculus vulpis and T.canis, for which 
the Greek names assigned are orkhis, saturyoon, and turphyla, evidently the pyc, 
Tarvowoy, and zppuadrey of Dioscorides. Several different kinds are seas but, as 
might be expected in a family like the Orchidee, it is difficult to ascertain what were 
formerly the officinal species : indeed, even those of the present day are unknown. In 
the first place, it is uncertain whether the Greeks obtained their knowledge of the — 
of these tubers from Eastern nations, or this was the result of their own observation. 
In the former case, the species must be extra European, and may be still unknown ; 
but in the latter case, some of the European species, which have been cpliyed as 
substitutes for Oriental salep, may be the original ones. é pions coh 
Sprengel (Diosc. ed Kuhn. ii. p. 553,) considers that Orchis dntieiiaaig L, which is 
at the present day called caAem: by the modern, to be the opyis of the ancient Greeks. 
m 
The other plants, which are supposed to be alluded to, have been ai t= 
3B z 
