Dr. Fauconer 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 yalley, 
or its branches, I found Prangos pabularia, two species of Pyrola, Pinus 
Gerardiana, together with species of Bupleurum, Statice, Ribes, Podophyllum, 
Epipactis, Sambucus, &c. 
Like Kæmpfer, 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 Asafcetida, which differed in no respect 
from the ordinary condition of the gum-resin as it occurs in commerce. This 
cireumstance 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 òròc Kvpnvaixec 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 
