270 ODOROGRAPHIA. 
obtainable in quantity, as 150]bs. of it are said to have been 
offered by an Egyptian city to St. Sylvester at Rome*. It may 
have been “ liquid storax,” Liquidambar orientalis, Miller. 
BALSAM OF GILEAD AND BALSAM oF MEcca. 
These oleo-resins were considered to be the produce of two distinct 
trees, but it is now believed that they are derived from one and 
the same tree, or that the Balsamodendron Gileadense, Kunth +, is 
only a variety of Balsamodendron Opobalsamum, Kunth & Brandis f. 
The synonymous names under which the trees have been de- 
scribed by other authorities are Balsamodendron Ehrenbergianum, 
Berg §; Amyris Gileadensis, Linn. ||; Amyris Opobalsamum, 
Forsk. ¥ ; Balessan, Bruce ** ; Balsamea, Gled. ++; Protium Gi- 
leadense, Wright & Arnott tt ; Balsamea Meccanense, D.C. §§. 
The French translator of the ‘ Pharmacographia’ remarks :— 
“To judge by the description and figure given by Berg|||| , it was 
indeed difficult to distinguish between the plants, and our opinion 
that they were identical was fully confirmed on examining a speci- 
men of the plant sent by Berg to the Museum in Paris, labelled 
Balsamodendron Ehrenbergianum, Berg, and comparing that 
specimen with that of B. Opobalsamum in the same Herbarium.” 
There are slight variations in the analyses of this plant made by 
various botanists, but generally it is described as a small tree of 
14. to 20 feet high, with very short, slender, divergent, purplish 
branches ; sparsely furnished with small, alternate, palmately tri- 
foliate, glabrous leaves, and blunt entire leaflets. The small 
whitish flowers appear three together on separate stalks, which are 
shorter than the leaf-stalks. The flowers are of separate sexes, 
with a 4-toothed permanent calyx ; the corolla has 4 fleshy petals 
inserted under an annular disc, provided with 8 glands. The 8 
* Vignolius, ‘ Liber Pontificalis,’ 1724, i. p, 95. 
+ Gen. Tereb. p. 16; D.C. Prodr. ii. p. 76. 
{ For. Fl. p. 65; and Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 1, 1824, ii. p. 348. 
§ Reg. Bot. Zeit. 1862, p. 163. 
|| Mant. p. 6; and Vahl. Symb. i. p. 28, t. 11. 
{ Deser. p. 79; and Linn. Amn. vii. p. 68. 
** Travels, Fr. ed. t. 25. 
tt Act. Soc. Cur. Nat. Berl. iii. p. 127. 
tt Prodr.i. pine §§ Prodr., ii. p. 76. 
||| Darstell. und Beschreibung . . . offizin. Gewiichse, iv. t. 32. 
