GALBANUM. 



821 



1. Ferula galhcmifiiia Boiss. et Buhse/ — a plant with a tall, solid 

 stem, 4 to 5 feet high, greyish, tomentose leaves, and thin flat fruits, 5 

 to 6 lines long, 2 to 3 broad, discovered in 1848 at the foot of Dema- 

 wend in Northern Persia, and on the slopes of the same mountain at 

 4,000 to 8,000 feet, also on the mountains near Kushkak and Chux^chura 

 (Jajarud?). Bunge collected the same plant at Subzawar. Buhse says 

 that the inhabitants of the district of Demawend collect the gum resin 

 of this plant which is Galbaniwi ; the tears which exude spontane- 

 ously from the stem, especially on its lower part and about the bases of 

 the leaves, are at first milk-white, but become yellow by exposure to 

 light and air. It is not the practice, so far as he observed, to wound 

 the plant for the purpose of causing the juice to exude more freely, nor 

 IS the gathering of the gum in this district any special object of 

 industry,^ The plant is called in Persian Khctssuih, and the Mazan- 

 deran dialect Boridsheh. 



2. F. ruhvicaulis Boiss.^ (F, erubesceiis Boiss. ex parte, Aucher 

 mice. n. 4614, Kotschy n. 666).— This plant was collected by Kotschy 

 m gorges of the Kuh Dinar range in Southern Persia, and probably by 

 Aucher-Eloy on the mountain of Dalmkuh in Northern Persia. 

 Borszczow/ who regards it as the same as the preceding (though 

 Boissier^ places it in a different section of the genus), says, on the 

 authority of Buhse, that it occurs locally throughout the whole of 

 N"orthern Persia, is found in plenty on the slopes of Elwund near 

 Hamadan, here and there on the edge of the great central salt-desert of 

 -Pei^ia, on the mountains near Subzawar, between Ghurian and Khaf, 

 west of Herat, and on the desert plateau west of Khaf He states, 

 though not from personal observation, that its gum-resin, which con- 

 stitutes Persian Galbanum, is collected for commercial purposes 



Hamadan 



rubi 



by Berg^ under the name of F, erubescens. 



th 



History — 



Hebrew Ghelbenali, was 



'» 



in 



and is men- 



as Hippocrates and Theo- 



• ft i% Tl^ lT^-._^ ^ - . W-. <^i 



Narthex 



--^"-^ yjj v^iit; earnest writers or 



pnrastus.* Dioscorides states it to oe tne juice oi a -Ly«/t/tts^ y^'^y^^o 

 "1 Syria, and describes its clmracters, and the method of purifying it by 

 not water exactly as followed in modern times. We find it mentioned 

 in the 2nd century among the drugs on which duty was levied at the 

 iioman custom house at Alexandria.' Under the name of K%nnah it 

 was well known to the Arabians, and through them to the physicians 



01 the school of Salerno. ' -, . .. 



In the journal of expenses of John, king of France, during his capti- 

 vity m England, A.D. 1859-60, there is an entry for the purchase ot 1 lb. 



jT ^ Y^"¥""^ rfer in ehier Seise durch 

 P^ "'^ "^ u«ti Persien gesammellen 

 <r7,J^-—^onv. M^m. de la Soc. imp. des 



BenHn ^<'«'^ow. xii. (I860) 99.— Fig. in 

 s^y and Trimen, Med. Plants, part IG. 



dej,?^ ,', '•^- ' also Bulletin de la Soc. imp. 

 i^.'^^- de Moscou, xxiii. (1850) 648. 



lo? «^ '^^- "• fasc. 2 (1856) 92. 

 , ^P. ci< 36 (see p. 315, note 1). 

 * lora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 995. 



«Berg u. Schmidt, Offizinelle Gewachse, 



iv. (1863) tab. 31 6. . 



TExotlus XXX. U.—Jei^. SiracJixxiv. 18. 

 —In imitation of the ancient Je_wi8h 

 custom, Galbanum is a component of the 

 incense used in the Irvingite chapels m 



London. , 



8 XaXpai/ij— Theophr. Htst. Plant. 



•Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. 

 (1807 692. 



IX. 



X 



