- 
cistus creTICUS. ORD. XXXV. Ascyroidec. 585 
THIS handsome shrub seldom rises to any considerable height ; 
it is covered with a dark coloured bark, and sends off several simple 
branches: the leaves are oblong, pointed, waved, rough, viscous, 
veined, and stand in pairs upon short footstalks, which are broad 
at the base, so as nearly to surround the younger branches: the 
flowers are produced in succession at the extremities of the branches 
in June and July; they are large, of a purplish red colour, marked 
with dark spots at the base of each petal, and stand on short 
peduncies: the calyx is divided in: five large oval pointed per- 
sistent segments, of which the two outermost are the smallest: 
the corolla is composed of five petals, which are large, roundish, 
spreading, and readily fall off on being touched : the filaments are 
numerous, very short, slender, and supplied with simple anther 
of an orange colour: the germen is oval, and supports a short 
style, furnished with a flat circular stigma: the capsule is roundish, 
and contains many small orbicular seeds. 
This shrub, which is a native of Candia ands some of the islands 
of Archipelago, was first cultivated in England by Mr. P. Miller 
in the year 1731,* and is now to be had of several of the London 
gardeners, though it is not so commonly met with as many other 
exotic species of this genus. Not only this plant, but most of its 
congeners, abound with a glutinous, liquor, which in summer 
exudes upon their leaves, and seems to be of the ladanum kind ; 
but it is well known, that the Cistus creticus is the species from 
which the officinal Ladanum is collected. This is done in Candia 
by means of an instrument called there Hrgastiri, made in the 
form of a rake, to which several leathern thongs are fixed instead 
of teeth, and with which the leaves of the shrub are lightly brushed 
backwards and forwards, so that the fluid Ladanum may adhere to 
the leather, from which it is afterwards scraped off with knives, 
and formed into regular masses for exportation.” 
@ Seé Aiton’s Hort. Kew. 
» See Belon. Observations de plusieurs singularites en Grecé, Asie, &c. Lid. 
. ¢. 7. and Tournefort, Foyage du Levant. t, ¢. p. 29, where the Ergastiri is 
desert and figured, 
No. 47,—vot. 4, ce 
