674 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
COLLOQUY L. 
Do Spiquenaedo otj Espiquenaedo. 
Spikenard, the root oi NardostacTiys jatamansi, D'C. 
Called, cahzgara {Tcalishada) in Mandou (Mandu),^ Cliitor,^ and parts 
of Bengal near the Ganges ; cemhul indi {sumhul-ul-aspire-hindi) by the 
Arabs. 
Garcia says that the abundance in which genuine drugs were then 
obtainable had caused much less falsification and substitution than had 
been practised in ancient times. 
The spikenard grew, he states, in Mandu, Chitor, and parts of Bengal, 
bordering the Ganges. This is a mistake. It came probably from 
T^epal. He mentions parenthetically the pilgrimages of the natives to 
the Ganges and Narbada ? the pilgrims having in the latter case to 
pay a tax to the JSiizam. He alludes to pagodas in Bengal and Orissa, 
probably those at Benares and Jagannath. 
He says that the two varieties known as siria and indica by 
Dioscorides are identical. He denies that a poison called pisso was 
prepared from it. 
Ainslie gives an account of the various opinions which have been 
held as to the identity of this plant. 
[References. — Clusius (Acosta), p. 45; Linschoten, ii., p. 126; 
Bontius and Fiso, lib. iv., p. 45 ; Ainslie, ii., pp. 367-8 ; Khory, 
p. 352.] 
COLLOQUY LI. : 
Do Spodio oe Espodio. • 
[Tabashir. — Silicious concretions in Bamhusa arundinacea, Schultz.] 
This was really tahashir, being different from the espodio of the 
Greeks, which was tutia or pomfolix (i.e. oxide of zinc) . Garcia attributes 
the misapplication of the term to Davo Terenciano (Gerado Cremonense) 
who mistranslated tahascir by espodio^ and others likewise when 
translating from Arabic into Latin made the same mistake. 
Called tahascir {tahashird) by the Persians and Arabs Espodio dos 
Mandu, the old Capital of Malwa. 
2 Chitor, the old Capital of Eajputana. 
