24 CISTUS CKETICUS 



below), and then revolute on both sides towards the wall ; ovules 

 numerous, attached in two rows by long funicles to the revolute 

 margins of the dissepiments ; style simple, as long as the ovary ; 

 stigma capitate. Fruit a small capsule, f inch long, ovate, acute, 

 brown, hairy, furrowed, splitting loculicidally into 5 valves. 

 Seeds numerous, with long funicles, orange-yellow, smooth or 

 reticulate, roundish, flattened; embryo long, slender, curled up 

 in the centre of the endosperm. 



Habitat. The Ladanum or Labdanum bush is a native of 

 rocky ground in Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, and the islands of 

 Crete, Rhodes, Sicily and Cyprus, in some of which it is very 

 abundant. Boissier considers it a variety of tne variable G. 

 villosus, L., which is spread over the Mediterranean district from 

 Italy to Palestine, and occurs also in Corsica and N. Africa. 

 The leaves of the plant are exceedingly viscid ; the glandular 

 structure of the short hairs is figured in Unger and Kotschy's 

 work on Cyprus quoted below (p. 403). It was in cultivation 

 in England in 1731, and its delicate flowers may now be seen in 

 most of our botanic gardens in June and July. 



DC. Prod., i, p. 264; Boiss., Fl. Orient., i, p. 437; Unger and 

 Kotschy, Die Insel Cypern (1865), pp. 336 & 393-410; Lindl., 

 Fl. Med., p. 131. 



Part Used and Name. LABDANUM, Ladanum ; a viscid resinous 

 exudation from the leaves and branches of various species of 

 Cistus, more especially of C. creticus, L. } but also of C. lada- 

 niferus, L., C. laurifolius, L., and C. salvifolius, L. It is not 

 now official in the British Pharmacopoeia, the Pharmacopoeia of 

 India, or the Pharmacopoeia of the United States. But it was 

 formerly official in the London and other British Pharmacopoeias, 

 and in the United States Pharmacopoeia. 



Collection and Commerce. Labdanum is collected in both Crete 

 and Cyprus ; that of the former island being known as Candian 

 Labdanum, and that of the latter as Cyprian Labdanum. In 

 Crete it is collected from about the middle of May to the middle 

 of July, or during the hottest season, when the plants are very 



