128 ODOROGRAPHIA. 



general involucre, and the partial ones consist of only a few small 

 bractes ; the flowers are whitish or pink. The most characteristic 

 feature is the globular fruit of chamois colour or pale yellow, about 

 the size of a white peppercorn, which is crowned by the teeth of the 

 calyx, and has no oil channels on the outer surface, but two on the 

 inner face of each half of the fruit ; the ridges are five in number 

 and rather indistinct. As the two carpels of which the fruit is 

 composed do not readily separate one from the other, being 

 protected by the ligneous pericarp, ihe fruits must be broken before 

 submitting them to distillation. The unripe fruits possess the 

 intensely disgusting odour of the other parts of the plant ; it is 

 therefore necessary to await their complete maturity before 

 gathering them. The nature of the chemical action producing this 

 modification in the odour is not understood. 



Although a native of the Levant and Southern Europe, it is 

 cultivated and even sometimes found in a half- wild condition in 

 this country. 



In England the seeds should be sown in September, in drills a 

 foot apart, preferably in a light rich soil. When the young plants 

 appear, they should be thinned out to a distance of 6 or 8 inches 

 apart. In the spring, the earth shonld be gently stirred with fork 

 or pronged hoe, and the weeds kept down. It is estimated that 

 from 15 to 20 lbs. of seeds will set an acre. The flowers begin to 

 show about June and the seeds ripen in August ; they must be 

 gathered with care to avoid loss by dropping. If the seed-bearing 

 part of the plants be clipped off and at once put into bags, less seed 

 will be dropped than by cutting down the entire plants. The seed 

 is separated out by a few strokes of a flail, a sail-cloth being spread 

 beneath. 



The English cultivation is mentioned by Baker in Morton's 

 Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, i., p. 545 ; the average yield from good 

 soil in England is 15 cwt. per acre. 



In India and Morocco it is also largely grown, although the 

 fruit produced in those countries is poorer in essential oil than 

 that grown in more northern countries. The Hindee name of 

 the plant is D'haynya* 



* Roxb. Hort. Beng., p. 21, and Flor. Ind., ii. p. 94 ; Wight, 111., t. 117, fig. 

 9, and Icones, t. 516 ; Bois, Flor. Orient., ii. p. 920. 



