LABIATE TRIBE 37 



moderately warm regions. But, as in all lands the great Creator lias given 

 beauty to floAvers, so to some among them He has in every clime granted 

 sweet odours. 



Some idea of the value of odoriferous plants, as an article of commerce, 

 is gained from the statement lately made in a popular journal. It mentions 

 that one of the large perfumers of Grasse in France employs annually 

 80,000 lbs. of orange blossoms, 60,000 of cassia flowers, 54,000 of violet 

 flowers, 20,000 of tuberose, 16,000 of lilac flowers, besides Mint, rosemary, 

 lavender, thyme, orange, and other sweet-scented plants. It would be 

 difficult to compute the amount of Mint and Peppermint grown in this 

 country, but the wholesale druggists, and not the perfumers, are, in this 

 kingdom at least, the great consumers of these two plants. In consequence 

 of the great improvements of chemical science, it has, of late years, been 

 found possible to imitate the scents usually procured from odoriferous herbs. 

 Lord Playfair, in a lecture to the Society of Arts, observes : — " Perfumers, 

 if they do not occupy whole streets, as they did in ancient Capua, show more 

 science in attaining their perfumes than those of former times. The Jury of 

 the Great Exhil)ition, or rather two distinguished chemists of that Jury, 

 Dr. Hoffman and M. Pelarue, ascertained that some of the most delicate 

 perfumes were made by chemical artifice, and not, as of old, by distilling 

 them from flowers. The perfumes of flowers often consist of oils and ethers 

 which the chemist can compound artificially in his own laboratory. 

 Singularly enough, they are generally derived from substances of intensely 

 disgusting odour. A peculiarly fetid oil, termed fusel-oil, is formed in 

 making brandy and whisky." From this fusel-oil and various chemical 

 preparations. Lord Playfair adds, is obtained the oil of apples and the oil of 

 pears, Avhile the oil of pine-apple, now largely employed in making pine- 

 apple ale, is procured from the action of putrid cheese on sugar. Oil 

 of grapes and oil of cognac, used to impart the flavour of French cognac 

 to British brandy, are little else than fusel-oil ; and the artificial oil of 

 almonds, so largely employed in perfumery, is prepared by the action of 

 nitric acid on the fetid oils of gas-tar. "Many a fair forehead," the lecturer 

 remarked, "is damped with eau de miUefleurs without knowing that its 

 essential ingredients are derived from the most disgusting sources. All these," 

 says Dr. Playfair, "are direct modern applications of science to an industrial 

 purpose, and imply an acquaintance Avith the highest investigations of organic 

 chemistry. Let us recollect that the oil of lemons, turpentine, oil of juniper, 

 oil of roses, oil of copaiba, oil of rosemary, and many other oils, are 

 identical in composition ; and it is not difficult to conceive that perfumery 

 may derive still further aid from chemistry." 



4. Peppermint (il/. pijycrita). — Leaves stalked, egg-shaped, and lan- 

 ceolate or oblong, serrated, upper leaves smaller ; bracts lanceolate ; floAvers 

 in loose, short, blunt spikes, interrupted beloAv; calyx Avith aAvl-shaped 

 teeth, quite smooth at the base, often red; perennial. A variety, often 

 known as M. officiiniJis, occurs Avith broad and rounded leaves, heart-shaped 

 at the base, and Avith its floAvers in very long spikes. The Peppermint 

 appears to be a truly AAnld plant on some of the riversides and moist places 

 Avhere it is found, but has probably escaped from cultivation. It is often 



