AP1ACE.E. 333 



alone or in combination, is the preferable mode, when administered as an 

 expectorant. 



Galbanum. — Don, 



Fruit compressed at the back, elliptical ; ridges 7, elevated, compressed, bluntly keeled, 

 not winged ; the lateral distinct, marginal. Channels broadish, concave, without vitUe, 

 commissure flat, dilated, with 2 broad curved vittae. 



This genus was established by Mr. Don {Trans. Linn. Soc., xvi. 603) 

 on some seeds found adhering to the gum Galbanum of commerce, and which 

 he supposes may be those of the plant, though no other proof of the fact 

 has yet been adduced. 



D. officinale, Don. — The only species. 



Don., Trans. Linn. Soc., xvi. 603 ; Lindley, Fl. Med., 51 ; Pereira, Mat. 

 Med., ii. 493 ; Royle, Mat. Med., 414. 



The exact habitat of this plant is not known, but it is most probable that 

 it is a native of Persia, which appears to be the head-quarters of the gum- 

 bearing Apiacese. The gum-resin itself was very early known, and is sup- 

 posed to be the substance spoken of by Moses (Exodus, xxx. 34) under the 

 name of Chelbenah, though he classes it among the sweet spices, which ap- 

 pellation is certainly not applicable to what is now known as galbanum. It 

 was likewise mentioned by Hippocrates, and described by Dioscorides, who 

 states that it is the product of a Ferula. Theophrastus, who also speaks of 

 it, attributes it to a species of Panax ; but as these terms had a very ex- 

 tended signification among the ancient botanists, they afford no clue as to 

 the exact plant, further than that it appertained to the umbelliferous tribe. 

 It was well known to the earlier Arabian physicians, who speak of it under 

 the name of Barzud, and call the plant producing it kinneh and nafeel. 

 D'Herbelot (Bib. Orient. 175) says that in Persia the gum is called Burzud 

 and the plant giarkhurst. The information derived from more modern 

 authorities is not more definite. Lemery (Diet. 377) speaks of two kinds 

 of galbanum ; one produced in Arabia and Syria, which he says is derived 

 from Ferula galbanifera, and the other of Indian origin, and the product of 

 Oreoselinum africanum galbaniferum, the latter of which is now known as 

 Bubon galbaniferum, and was generally supposed to afford the commercial 

 article, but it has been shown that this plant is a native of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where no galbanum is produced, and also that it has neither the smell 

 nor taste of this drug. Lobel, who sowed some seed which he found attached 

 to the gum, obtained plants of Ferula ferulago, which, although affording a 

 gum-resinous secretion, does not yield true galbanum. Within a few years, 

 Sir John M'Neil sent to England specimens of a plant from Khorassan to 

 which were adhering a gum-resin, which Dr. Lindley thought to be galba- 

 num, and the plant being new, he described it under the name of Opoidia 

 galbanifera (Bot. Reg. 1839.) Dr. Pereira, however, who examined this 

 product, was unable to identify it with any known gum-resin. It is, there- 

 fore, evident, that all that is known with certainty as regards the origin of 

 galbanum, is that it is produced by an umbelliferous plant. 



Galbanum is said to be obtained in the same manner as assafcetida, by 

 making incisions into the crown of the root and stalks, and removing the 

 juice which flows out and soon concretes. It is imported both from India 

 and the Levant, which places it probably reaches through the Persian Gulf. 

 As met with in commerce, it is in the form of tears or in lump, the first of 

 which is the purest, having a yellow or brownish-yellow colour, and free from 



