2 Sir J. E. Smith on the Lignum Rhodium 



call it the Oriental Plane-tree. The leaves being rubbed have a 

 fine balsamic smell, with an orange flavour. It produces an ex- 

 cellent wliite turpentine; especially when any incisions are made 

 in the bark. I suppose it is from this that they extract a very 

 fine perfumed oil, which, they say, as well as the wood, has the 

 virtue of fortifying the heart and brain. The common people 

 here cut off the bark and wood together, toast it in the fire, and 

 suck it, which they esteem a specific remedy in a fever, and seem 

 to think that it has a miraculous operation.'^ 



So far Dr. Pococke, who in the 2d part of the same vol. p. 188, 

 mentions this tree again, and, in plate 89, gives a tolerable, but 

 not precisely botanical figure of it. This plate is cited by Will- 

 denow, Sp. PI. vol. 4. 475, as a representation of the Liquidambar 

 imberhe. Ait. Hort. Kew, ed. 1. vol. 3. 365. That author perceiving 

 it to be no Flatanus, but rather a Liquidambar, reasonably enough 

 concluded it to represent the Oriental, rather than the American, 

 species of that genus. The figure, though drawn and engraved 

 by Ehrct, is not sufficiently accurate to determine so nice a point. 

 As it does not show the hairiness about the veins of the leaves, 

 which distinguishes the occidental Liquidambar from the oriental, 

 Willdenow is the more excusable; though the outline of the foli- 

 age agrees best with the former. 



Dr. Sibthorp, in his visit to Cyprus, was anxious to ascertain 

 the tree mentioned by Pococke, and the result of his inquiry 

 cannot be better related than in the words of his manuscript 

 journal. 



" April 19, 1785, at eight in the morning we left Upreva, and, 

 passing through the vales below, gradually ascended the moun- 

 tains of Antiphoniti. At noon we arrived at the convent, most 

 ronmntically situated among the mountains, with a view of the 

 sea, and a distant sight of the mountains of Caramania. i was 



come 



