128 FERULA GALBANIFLUA 



two, and they are certainly very nearly allied. Indeed, Boissier' s 

 discarded species, F. crnhwcn*, was made up of specimens some of 

 which he now refers to F. rubricaulie and others to F. galbaniftua, 

 var, j3. Aucheri. This latter variety, collected in Persia by Aucher- 

 Eloy (no. 3658), though it certainly has the vittaB of the species 

 to which it is now referred, possesses leaves with the wider 

 segments of F. rubricaulis, as figured in Berg's plate. It was to 

 Aucher-Eloy's plant that the name F. gummosa was formerly 

 given by Boissier. 



These two plants no doubt afford the great bulk of Persian 

 Galbanum, but Ferula Sckair, Borszczow, a native of the desert 

 regions of the Syr-Darja (River Syr), on the confines of Siberia and 

 Turkestan, is also a source of the drug. It was met with in 1859 

 near Lake Kotschkan-Ssu, and is said to grow abundantly about 

 3 miles further eastward. A tenacious milky juice was observed 

 to exude from the cut stem which had completely the odour of 

 Galbanum, and the scent was so strong as to be observed at a 

 considerable distance. This plant is finely illustrated in Borsz* 

 czow's memoir quoted below, tt. 6 8.* 



The Galbanum officinale of Don (Trans. Linn. Soc., xvi (1833), 

 p. 603), founded on fruits sticking to the drug, cannot be cer- 

 tainly determined. The fruits were clearly not those of the 

 Galbanum plant, and are thought by Bentham to come near 

 Poh/lophium. Lindley's Opo'idia galbanifera, collected by Sir J. 

 McNeill in Khorassan in 1838 (Bot. Register, 1839, app. p. 66), 

 has not been identified, but is considered by the same authority to 

 be probably some species of Peuccdanum. 



Buhse, in Bulletin Soc. Imp. Nat. de Moscou, xxiii (1850), 

 p. 548, and Nouv. Mem. Soc. Imp. Nat. Mosc., xii (1860), 

 p. 99; Boissier, in Ann. des Sc. Nat., ser. 3, i, p. 316, 

 Diagnoses Plant., nov. Or., ser. 2, fasc. 2, p. 92, and Flora 

 Orientalis, ii, pp. 989 and 995 ; Borszczow, in Mem. Acad. 

 Imp. Sciences, St. Petersbourg, iii (1860-61), p. 33. 



Official Part and Names. GALBANUM; a gum-resin, derived 

 from an unascertained umbelliferous plant (B. P.). A gum-resin 

 * Bentham & Hook, f . (Gen. i, p. 920) refer it to Teucedunum (sect. Diplotania). 



