347 
Babu Rajendrala’la Mitra* interprets as meaning “aromatic 
reed” (turushka = aromatic substance, danda = stick), and hence —_ 
also ‘Khas Khas.’ The latter term, now so commonly used, is— 
supposed to be of Persian origin, but this appears to me very. 
doubtful. It is mentioned in the Makhzan-el-Adwiyahf as a 
kind of ‘Izkhir’ used in India, also known as ‘ Izkhir-i-Jami,’ 
(Izkhir-i-Ajami, foreign Izkhir), and called by the Persians 
‘ bikh-i-wala ’ (wala root). 
The ‘Khas Khas’ was long ago equally well known to the 
Dravidic peoples of the South. Rheedet described and figured the 
grass under the Malayalim name Rumacciam, which is still in use in 
Travancore (Ramach-cham, Moodeen Sherif; Ramattam, Stolz). 
He states that the roots (but not the leaves) are fragrant and sold 
in the bazars for medicinal purposes to prepare lotions, infusions, 
and decoctions. It is; he remarks, very common throughout 
Malabar and diligently cultivated by the natives, who propagate it 
by dividing the tufts and planting them in loose soil. He further 
observes that the best Ramacciam grows near Tutocorim, the 
port which in our own day is still the principal place of export of 
the roots of ‘Khas Khas’ or ‘ Vetiver.” Rheede’s figure represents a 
leaf-tuft with the leaf-tops cut off. Although somewhat crude, it is 
perfectly characteristic, and it is difficult to understand how the 
‘Ramacciam’ of the ‘Hortus Malabaricus’ could ever have passed— 
as it so frequently has done—for the ‘lemon-grass.’ Hermann§ _ 
(1672-1677) also found the roots in similar use at Colombo in 
Ceylon, where they were known as ‘Lumbutschi-veru (radix. 
odorata)’ and the grass itself as ‘Saewaendara, which name 
has survived to the present day. About 25 years later (in 1700) 
Dr. Bulkley sent it to Ch. Du Bois from Madras under the Tamil. 
name ‘ Vettyveer’ (= Vetiver), the vernacular name by which the 
grass is best known in Europe. Petiver|| also received specimens of 
it from Samuel Browne of Madras at about the same time and 
» announced them in his ‘Museum’ as “ Gramen Madraspatanum 
majus cujus locustae spinulis eleganter armatae sunt.” Some of 
them he sent to Scheuchzerf, who from them drew up one of 
those classic descriptions which for completeness and accuracy 
remained long unequalled in agrostological literature. 
FOUNDATION OF THE SPECIES. SYNONYMY.—No notice was 
taken of Scheuchzer’s description or of Petiver’s and Du Bois’s 
Specimens, and when Jinnaeus, about 1770,** received the grass 
from Koenig he described it as something new under the name 
Phalaris zizanioides. Koenig, however, also sent specimens of 
the grass to Retzius, who published it as Andropogon muricatustt 
in 1783. This name, which was suggested by Koenig himself, was 
* Babu Rajendrala’la Mitra in Journ. As, Soc. Beng. (Hist. & Lit.), vol. xlii, 
(1878), p. 320; Proc. As. Soc. Beng. (1873), p. 161. 
t+ See Dymock, Warden, and Hooper, Pharmacogr. Indica (1893), vol. iii., 
p. 572. 
~ Rheede, Hort. Malab., vol. xii. (1703), tab. 72. 
§ Hermann, Mus. Zeyl. (1726), p. 51. 
|| Petiver, Mus. Petiv. (1699), p. 53, no. 559. 
{ Scheuchzer, Agrostogr. (1719), p. 103. 
** Linnaeus, Mant. Alt. (1771), p. 183. 
- tf Retz. Observ., vol. iii. (1783), p. 43. 
26295 ) VD 2 
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