ASSA-FOeTIDA PLANT. 213 



a sharp bitter taste ; the petals Kaempfer did not see, but supposes 

 them in number five, minute, and white. 



This plant is said to vary much according to the situation and 

 soil in which it grows, not only in the shape of the leaves, but in 

 the peculiar nauseous quality of the juice which impregnates them j 

 this becomes so far altered that they are sometimes eaten by the 

 goats. 



Assafcefida is the concrete juice of the root of this plant, which is 

 procured in the following manner on the mountains in the provinces 

 of Chorasaan and Laar in Persia. At that season of the year wheti 

 the leaves begin to decay, the oldest plants are selected * for this 

 purpose. First the firm earth which encompasses the root, is ren- 

 dered light by digging, and part of it cleared away, so as to leave 

 a portion of the upper part of the root above the ground ; the 

 leaves and stalk are then twisted off and used with other vegetables 

 for a covering to screen it from the sun, and upon this covering a 

 stone is placed to prevent the winds from blowing it down: in this 

 state the root is left for forty davs, after which the covering is re- 

 moved, and the top of the root cut off transversely ; it is then 

 screened again from the sun for forty-eight hours, which is thought 

 a sufficient time for the juice to exude upon the wounded surface of 

 the root, when the juice is scraped off by a proper instrument, and 

 exposed to the sun to harden : this being done, a second transverse 

 section of the root is made, but no thicker than is necessary to re- 

 move the remaining superficial concretions which would otherwise 

 obstruct the farther effusion of fresh juice; the screening is then 

 again employed for forty-eight hours, and the juice obtained a 

 second time, as before mentioned. In this way the Assafcetida is 

 eight times repeatedly collected from each root ; observing, how- 

 ever, that after every third section, the root is always suffered to 

 remain unmolested for eight or ten days, in order that it may re- 

 cover a sufficient stock of juice. Thus, to exhaust one root of its 

 juice, computing from the first time of collecting it to the last, a 

 period of nearly six weeks is required j when the root is abandoned, 

 and soon perishes. 



The whole of this business is conducted by the peasants who live 

 in the neighbourhood of the mountains where the drug is procured ; 



Radix quadriennio minor parum lactescit et nunquam secatur, 

 P 3 



