1888-89.] The Source of Badsha, or Royal Salep. 435 



Transactions for April 1, 1858. From the evidence which 

 this article afforded there could be no doubt that my speci- 

 mens were identical with those so well depicted and de- 

 scribed by Mr Hanbury. 



Mr Baker, at a meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society on 

 December 8, 1886, at which I read my paper, was of opinion 

 that he had identified the bulb as that of Ungernia trisphmra, 

 a plant of the order Amaryllidacese. This, however, was an 

 error due to the bulb that he examined having been wrongly 

 labelled; and also owing to its being an only live specimen 

 (the undetermined species of Allium of mine from Afghan- 

 istan hereafter referred to) a close inspection was not per- 

 missible ; but, I think, almost the very next day the error 

 was detected, after another more careful inspection of the 

 wrongly-labelled bulb, which subsequently Mr Baker and I 

 were both satisfied was that of an Allium, and one very 

 likely to represent in a dried state the form of Salep now 

 under consideration. 



During 1881, Dr Wilson Johnstone, RRS.E., of the 

 Bengal Medical Service, placed in my hands at Kew, for 

 identification, a collection of plants from Afghanistan that 

 had been made on the line of march between the Kojak 

 Pass, Kandahar, and Cabul. In this collection was an 

 Allium to which was attached the note, " Plant said to yield 

 Salep in these parts." When identifying this collection I 

 had not heard of Badsha- Salep, and the above note I had 

 utterly forgotten when investigating the subject during 1886. 

 Only some months subsequently did I remember it, in con- 

 nection with a large-bulbed herbarium specimen of my own, 

 belonging to my last Afghan collections. 



During October 1888, I was in Edinburgh, and upon 

 visiting the Eoyal Botanic Garden there, I asked Professor 

 Bayley Balfour, the Keeper of the Garden, if he could show 

 me a living bulb of Allium Madeanii. Not only did he do 

 so, but most liberally presented me with two specimens of it. 

 The moment I handled the bulb of this species, I recognised 

 at once that there could now be no doubt as to this being 

 the living condition of the dried product under discussion. 



The original specimens of the Edinburgh Garden came from 

 Mr Wilson of St Andrews, who had received them from 

 Colonel (now General) Maclean, C.B., from Afghanistan, with 



