278 COMPOSITZ:. 
The only difficulty is that wpe@pov is described by Diosco~ 
rides as an umbelliferous plant; but with the properties of 
pellitory; here the author of the Makhzan comes to our aid 
and tells us that the pyrethrum of Dioscorides resembling 
anethum is a drug which the Arabs call Ud-el-karih-jibbali, 
very common in Syria; it is found at the upper part of 
Wady Pardah, and, he says, I have seen its fruit; it has 
a root about a span in length, as thick as the finger, 
and has many of the properties of pyrethrum. He also 
quotes Antaki* as mentioning two kinds of pyrethrum, 
viz., Western, or the kind described by Ibn Baitar, and Syrian 
called Ud-el-karih, which is the root of the mountain Tar- 
khtin and the kind described by Dioscorides (Smyrnium cordi- 
folium, Boiss.). We also learn from the Makhzan that o»42. 
is an Arabic form of w:4,) the name of a plant common in 
Persia, especially in Fars and about Shiraz; it is eaten like 
cress and other herbs with bread and cheese. ‘There are two 
kinds, wild and cultivated; it is propagated by seed and by - 
cuttings, and has a hot, astringent aud sweetish taste ; if taken 
fasting it benumbs the tongue; on this account it is chewed 
to cover the taste of nauseous medicines. The taste is likened 
to that of the leaves of the Woodapple (Feronia elephantum). 
The root of the wild plant is called Akarkarha. Ainslie, speak- 
ing of Pellitory root, says:—‘ This root is to be found in most 
of the Indian bazars ; though I cannot learn that the plant grows 
in any partof India. Itis a native of Arabia, Syria, Calabria, 
Crete, and Bohemia,t and it is, no doubt, from the first- 
mentioned of these countries that it is brought to Hindustan, 
an export from Mocha. Iam much inclined to think that it 1s 
the root we find noticed by Forskahl in his Materica Medica 
Khatrina under the name of Ud-el-karih. With regard to its 
Asiatic names, thereis this peculiarity, that its Arabic, Persian 
* ae Dawood of ‘Antioch, his work j is in Arabic, and has been printed 
at Beyro 
+ The "rat alluded to by Aine’ as | growing in these localities must be 
ayne, or German Pellitory. It is eet » not the 
Patitory imported into India, being much smaller, 
