eee  - PRIMULACEA. | j 
Commerce.—The root is sold at Rs. 4 to 5 per maund of — 
373 lbs. The Bombay market is supplied from Kattiawar and — 
Guzerat, where the shrub grows to a much larger size than it k 
does in the Concan. 
PRIMULACEZ. 
DIONYSIA DIAPENSIZEFOLIA, Boiss. — 
Fig.—Clusius Eaot. 4. p. 199. 
--Hab.—Persia. The plant. 
Vernacular.—Hamama (Arab., Ind. Bazars). 
History, Uses, &c.—The recent discovery by Mr. B. 
_ M. Holmes of the botanical source of Hamima (Pharm. Journ, 
1887,) enables us better to understand the description by Di 5. 
corides of the amomon of the Greeks. His chapter rep! dzopov 
has always puzzled the commentators; it has an hiatus 
in the middle; there are several apabetat readings in 
text, and a paragraph which appears to have got into it 
mistake. In the edition of 1529 we read $¥d\a Se Byvona (, 
épota and in the same edition, where bryony is treated of, t 
word is printed Spvovia in the usual manner. This crea 
suspicion that the true text may have had_ moss, and not 
bryony ; we can then read the description of the first kin 
—s as follows—“Amomon is a small shrubby _ 
- (ajevior ) like a banch of intertwining woody stems; it | 
small flower. ‘like the wallflower (Acvxéw») ; the leaves are like 
those of moss; the best i is the Armenian, of a golden ting 
with reddish | ‘yellow stems, sufficiently fragrant. This 1 
agree very well with the characters of the genus Dionysia 
Dioscorides thea proceeds to describe the kind found i in M 
but it omits the next poses Se 
where. ‘the —— } occurs “and 
