-FERULA ASAFO:TIDA, ORD. VI. Umbellate 1is 
great estimation both as a medicine and a sauce, yet we had no 
particular account of the plant till Kaempfer returned from his 
travels in Asia, and published his Ameenitates Exotica in: the 
beginning of the present century. As he saw the plant growing, 
‘and describes it from his own observation, we have collected the 
following general description from the history. he has given: 
It is a native of Persia, the root is perennial, tapering, ponderous, 
and increases to the size of a man’s arm or leg, covered with a 
blackish coloured bark, and near the top beset with many strong. 
rigid fibres; the internal substance is white, fleshy, and abounds 
with a thick milky juice, yielding an excessively strong fetid. 
alliaceous smell; the stalk is simple, erect, straight, round, smooth, 
striated, herbaceous, about six or seven inches in circumference at 
the base, and rises luxuriantly to the height of two or three yards,. 
or higher ;* radical leaves six or seven, near two feet long, bipin-. 
nated, pinnule alternate, smooth, variously sinuated, lobed, and. 
sometimes lance-shaped, of a deep green colour, and fetid smell; 
the umbels are compound, plano-convex, terminal, and consist 
of many radii: the seeds are oval, flat, foliaceous, of a reddish. 
browa colour, rough, marked with three longitudinal lines, have a. 
porraceous smell, and a. sharp bitter taste: the petals Kaempfer 
did not see, but supposes them. in. number five, minute, and. 
white.. 
This plant is said to vary much according to the situation and 
soil in which it grows, not only in the shape of the leaves, but in 
the peculiar nauseous quality of the juice which impregnates them ; 
this becomes so. far altered that they are sometimes eaten by the. 
goats. | : 
Asafoetida is the concrete juice of the root of this plant, which. 
is procured in the following manner on the mountains in the 
provinces of Chorasaan and Laar in Persia. At that season of the 
year when the leaves begin to decay, the oldest plants are selected: 
*- Caulic, in orgyjx, sesquiergyje, vel majorem longitudinem luxuriose exsur-. 
gens, crassitic in ime quanta mands complexum superat. . 
No, 10. 2F 
