STORAX, 241 
isobutyl alcohol with benzene and zinc chloride *, and by the action 
of aluminium chloride on a mixture of isobutyl chloride and 
benzene +. It is a pleasant smelling liquid, which boils at 167°°5, 
and has a sp. gr. of 0°890 at 15°. 
SToRAX. 
The words Storax and Styraxz have been used by some authors 
to distinguish between the solid and the liquid varieties of this 
drug. The solid kind usually referred to by Dioscorides and 
ancient classical writers as =tvpaég is yielded by the Styrax offici- 
nalis, Linn.,a small tree nearly allied to the tree yielding benzoin. 
It is a native of Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, and is cultivated 
in Italy and some parts of the south of France. It is figured and 
botanically described in Woodville’s ‘ Medical Botany,’ tab. 71, 
in Churchill and Stevenson’s ‘Medical Botany,’ i. tab. 47; in 
Andrews’s ‘ Botanical Repository,’ 631, and Loddiges’s ‘ Botanical 
Cabinet,’ 928. It is said that this tree, when allowed to grow 
freely, will attain 15 or 20 feet in height; but now, in most 
localities, it is stunted down to a mere bush through bad cultiva- 
tion and cutting the tree periodically for fuel; in such state it does 
not yield the odoriferous product, except possibly in the district 
of Alexandretta. 
The Styrazr officinalis, Liun., is indigenous in the mountainous 
woods on the east side of Toulon, in the direction of Cuers. It 
there grows in abundance, but as it is cut periodically for fuel in 
common with the other trees growing near it, it can seldom attain 
any considerable size. Hanbury states { that at the time of his 
visit to this district, May 17, 1854, he did not observe any trees 
exceeding eight or nine feet in height; ... that the Styrax trees 
presented a beautiful appearance by their abundance of orange- 
flower-like blossoms, but that no trace of resinous exudation could 
be observed upon any of the trunks, nor did the fresh bark possess 
the least odour of storax. 
This gum, which used to be known as “ True Storax” (derived 
from the Arabic word Assthirak), is very fragrant, and appears in 
the form of separate or more or less agglutinated tears, exuding 
either spontaneously or after incision made in the trunk of the 
* Ber. Deutsch. chem. Ges. xy. pp. 1066 and 1425. 
+ Bull. Soc, Chim. xli. p. 446. 
t Pharm, Journ. [3] xiy. p. 12. 
