262 ODOROGRAPHIA. 
mum Toluiferum, A. Rich., a lofty evergreen tree with a straight 
trunk, sometimes rising to a height of 40 feet before branching 
(evidencing in this respect a marked difference from the My- 
roxylon Pereira yielding Balsam Peru, with which Professor 
Baillon argues it to be identical *), and attaiming an average height 
of about 70 feet. 
The Balsam Tolu tree is found in the district of Plata on the 
right bank of the Magdalena in New Granada, also in Venezuela, 
Equador, and Brazil. 
The balsam is obtained by cutting several V-shaped notches into 
the bark, at the base of which the wood is a little hollowed out, 
so as to allow calabashes of the size and shape of tea-cups to be 
fixed. Sometimes as many as twenty calabashes may be seen on 
various parts of the same trunk, and the bleeding is allowed to go 
on for eight months in the year, so that ultimately the trees 
become much exhausted and thin in foliage fF. 
As freshly imported, Balsam Tolu appears as a light brown 
resin, and although not fluid or of a sticky surface, is yet suffici- 
ently soft to receive the impression of the finger. It hardens 
gradually by age, becoming brittle in cold weather, but softens by 
the warmth of the hand. In an attenuated state, spread out in a 
thin layer, it is quite transparent and yellowish-brown in colour. 
Its perfume is very delicate and agreeable, recalling that of 
benzoin aad vanilla, and is very diffusible on the application of 
warmth or when its alcoholic solution is left to evaporate on paper. 
Its taste is feebly aromatic and of scarcely perceptible acidity, 
although its alcoholic solution distinctly reddens litmus. Very 
old samples, such as those of the last century which are imported 
into Europe in small calabashes of the size and shape of an 
orange, have become hard, brittle, and pulverulent; showing a 
brilliant crystalline fracture of beautiful dark amber colour, and 
having a more delicate perfume than recent balsam. 
When Balsam Tolu is pressed between two slips of warmed 
glass and the film examined with a magnifying-glass, a quantity 
of crystals of cmnamic acid are observable. 
The balsam is completely soluble in cold acetic acid, alcohol, 
chloroform, and solution of caustic potash; it is only imperfectly 
soluble in ether, scarcely at all in volatile oils, and quite insoluble 
* Pharm. Journ. [3] iv. p. 382. 
t Journ. of the Royal Hort. Soc. May 1864. 
