GALBANIBI. 321 



1. Ferula rjalhamflua Boiss. et Buhso,' — a plant with a tall, solid 

 stem, 4 to 5 feet high, greyish, tomentose leaves, and thin flat fruits, 5 

 to 6 lines long, 2 to 3 broad, discovered in 1848 at the foot of Dema- 

 wend in Northern Persia, and on the slopes of the same mountain at 

 4,000 to 8,000 feet, also on the mountains near Kushkak and Churchura 

 (Jajariid ?). Bunge collected the same plant at Subzawar. Buhse says 

 that the inhabitants of the district of Demawend collect the gum resin 

 of this plant which is Galhanuiii ; the tears which exude spontane- 

 ously from the stem, especially on its lower part and about the bases of 

 the leaves, are at first milk-white, but become yellow by exposure to 

 light and air. It is not the practice, so far as he observed, to wound 

 the plant for the purpose of causing the juice to exude more freely, nor 

 is the gathering of the gum in this district any special object of 

 industry." The plant is called in Persian Khctssuih, and the Mazan- 

 deran dialect Boridsheh. 



2. F. rubricaidis Boiss.' (F. eruhescens Boiss. ex parte, Aucher 

 exsicc. n. 4614, Kotschy n. 666). — This plant was collected by Kotschy 

 in gorges of the Kuh Dinar range in Southern Pei'sia, and probably by 

 Aucher-Eloy on the mountain of Dalmkuh in Northern Persia. 

 Borszczow,* who regards it as the same as the preceding (though 

 Boissier^ places it in a different section of the genus), says, on the 

 authority of Buhse, that it occui"s locally throughout the whole of 

 Northern Persia, is found in plenty on the slopes of Elwund near 

 Hamadan, here and there on the edge of the great central salt-desert of 

 Persia, on the mountains near Subzawar, between Ghurian and Khaf, 

 west of Herat, and on the desert plateau west of Khaf, He states, 

 though not from personal observation, that its gum-resin, which con- 

 stitutes Persian GalbanuTii, is collected for commercial purposes 

 around Hamadan. F. rubricaulis Boiss. has been beautifully figured 

 by Berg® under the name of F. eruhescens. 



History — Galbanum, in Hebrew Chelhenah, was an ingredient of 

 the incense used in the worship of the ancient Israelites," and is men- 

 tioned by the earliest writers on medicine as Hippocrates and Theo- 

 phrastus.* Dioscorides states it to be the juice of a Narthex growing 

 in Syria, and describes its characters, and the method of purifying it by 

 hot water exactly as followed in modem times. We find it mentioned 

 in the 2nd century among the drugs on which duty was levied at the 

 Roman custom house at Alexandria.* Under the name of Kinnah it 

 was well known to the Arabians, and through them to the physicians 

 of the school of Salerno. 



In the journal of expenses of John, king of France, during his capti- 

 vity in England, A.D. 1359-60, there is an entry for the purchase of 1 lb. 



^Aufzdhluvg der in einer Bdse clurch 'Berg u. Schmidt, OffizineUe Getcdchse, 



Transkaukasien und Persien gesammelten iv. (1863) tab. 31 h. 



Pflanzen. — N<mv. Mem. de la Soc. imp. des ' Exodus xxx. 34. — Jes. Sirach xxiv. 18. 



iV^a^ de Moscou, xii. (1860) 99. — Fig. in — In imitation of the ancient Jewish 



Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 16. custom, Galbanum is a comi)onent of the 



^ Buhse, I.e. ; siso Bulletin de la Soc. imp. incense iised in the Irvingite chapels in 



deg Nat. de Moscov, xxiii. (1850) 548. London. 



^Diagnoses Plantarumnovarumprcesertim ^XaXpdmt — Theophr. Hist. Plant, ix. 



orientalium, ser. ii. fasc. 2 (1856) 92. c. 1. 



*0p. cit. 36 (see p. 315, note 1). » Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. 



" Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 995. (1807 692. 



