453 BOTANIC kh OBSERVATIONS ON 



I need scarce attempt to give any further history.pf 

 this famous odoriferous plant than what is merely bo- 

 tanical ; and that with a view to help to illustrate the 

 learned dissertations thereon, by the late Sir William 

 Jones, in the 2d and 4th volumes of these Researches; 

 and chiefly by pointing out the part of the plant 

 known by the name Indian Nard, or Spikenard : a 

 question on which Matheoh.s-, the commentator of 

 Dioscorirfcs, bestows a great deal of argument ; viz. 

 Whether the roots or stalks were the parts esteemed for 

 rise : the testimony of the antients themselves on this 

 head being ambiguous. It is therefore necessary for 

 those who wish for a more particular account of it, to 

 be acquainted with what that gentleman has published 

 on the subject. 



T/ie plants now received, are growing in two small 

 baskets of earth ; in each basket there appears above 

 the earth between thirty and forty hairy spike4ike 

 bodies, but more justly compared to the tails of Er~ 

 mines, or small Weasels* \ from the apex of each, or 

 at least of the greatest part of them, there is asmooth 

 lanceolate, or lanceolate-oblong, three or five-nerved, 

 shoit-petioled, acute or obtuse, slightly serrulate leaf 

 or two shooting forth. Fig. 1 . represents one of them 

 in the above state; and on gently removing the fibres 



* The term spica, or spike, is not so ill applied to this substance 

 as maybe imagined; several of the Indian grasses, well known to 

 rr.e, have .pikes almoft exactly resembling a single straight piece 

 of nardus ; and when those ha ; rs (or flexible arista like bristles) 

 ar« removed, Pliny's words, M frutexradice pingui et crassa," are 

 by uo means inapplicable. See Fig. 2, from u to L 



or 



