PRIMULACH &, 341 
Throughout the remainder of the chapter the Greek and the 
Arabian versions agree, with the exception that the latter omits 
all mention of Amomis, : aged eis 
The conclusion of the chapter in Dioscorides is noteworthy: 
he says—“ In the selection of these articles it is important to 
avoid broken pieces, and to choose such specimens as have 
entire branches springing from a single root ;” this is appli- 
cable to hamama, but not to cardamoms. 2 
Theophrastus (9, 7, 1) merely mentions cardamomon an 
amomon as coming from Media. Celsus (lib. V.) mentions 
amomum and cardamomum as ingredients in a “ Malagma ad- 
jecur dolens.”? Pliny (18, 1,) speaks ofamomum as an Assy- 
rian shrub with a white flower, from which a costly perfume 
was made. In short there is no medical description of the drug 
“except by Dioscorides. i 
- The non-medical classical writers mention amomum, bu 
they allude to it in a vague way, or as a precious perfume, —/ 
In Virgil’s third Zclogue, Dameetas says :— ; 
“Qui te, Pollio, amat, veniat, quo te quoque gaudet : 
Mella fluant illi, ferat et rubus asper amomum.” aoe 
_ Among the Arabians Ibn Sina (Avicenna) “only notices one 
kind of Ham4mé, “ Shajrat k4nkood min khashab mushabbak” 
(a plant with latticed woody branches, the first kind of Dios- 
corides); but he remarks that it affords a sticky exudation. 
Sheik Dawood of Antioch, who wrote A. D. 1656, says: “6 Ha. 
mémé, is in Greek amomiya, and its flowers are called leukéin, 
it is not bruwaniya, which isa name for fashara. The plant 
consists of sticks latticed together in a bunch ofa reddish- 
golden colour, acrid, hot, perfumed; it springsfromasingle root, 
hard, perfumed; it grows in Armenia and Tarsus, and a kind 
of it in Syria is greenish and small, or yellowish and fragile, 
“both spurious; and it grows in the month of Nisan (April) ; at 
has reddish flowers, like those of the Wallflower.or Sédaj.”” 
The Persian writers give similar descriptions, but ‘that of — af 
_ He sa; 
‘4 hey : va 
a3 
‘Haji Zein el Attar (A. D.-1368) is_more original. 
o_o 
a 
i 
