66 VEGETABLE DRUGS WITHOUT ORGANIC STRUCTURE. 



Production. — The product, in the form of milky juice, 

 is found throughout the plant, but that coming from 

 the root is alone used. In the root it is formed by small 

 cells which line large, long and unbranched schizogenous 

 passages, richest in the parenchyma of the bark. 



The milk sap canals in the secondary bark are very 

 large, their diameter being as great as 70 to 130 microns 

 in Ferula Narthex; 130 microns in Ferula albacea. Some- 

 times a number of canals will coalesce, forming a passage 

 560 to 600 microns in diameter. They have a concentric 



arrangement. The 

 passages in the vessel 

 portion of the plant 

 are generally much 

 narrower, from 80 to 

 40 microns in diam- 

 eter. 



In most of the ac- 

 counts given of the 

 collection, in the 

 main, it is said that 

 the root is carefully 

 cleaned from wither- 

 ing leaves and then 

 cut off close to the 

 ground, while a shal- 

 low pit is made about its base. The entire plant is 

 thus covered over with leaves for five to six weeks. 

 In May the covering is removed and a thin slice of 

 the root is cut off and the juice that exudes is scraped 

 off into appropriate receptacles. The plant is then 

 covered, and in a few days, three to ten, a second slice 

 is taken and the process repeated until the root is ex- 

 hausted. 



Description. — The juice first collected is apt to be thin, 

 and it is this earlier juice that is apt to be adulterated with 



Fig. 6. — Asafcetida. 



Milk-canal containing secretion in root: 



s, Secretory cells; i, secretory passage. 



