132 
plint's katukal histoet. 
[Book XII. 
cleverest mode of adulterating it is with Indian myrrh,-^ a 
substance which is gathered from a certain prickly shrub which j 
grows there. This is the only thing that India produces of | 
worse quality than the corresponding produce of other coun- | 
tries : they may, however, be very easily distinguished, that 
of India being so very much inferior. 
CHAP. 36. (17.) MASTICH. 
The transition, therefore,^^ is very easy to mastich, which | 
grows upon another prickly shrub of India and Arabia, known 
by the name of laina. Of mastich as well there are two dif- I 
ferent kinds ; for in Asia and Greece there is also found a herb , 
which puts forth leaves from the root, and bears a thistly 
head, resembling an apple, and full of seeds. Upon an inci- 
sion being made in the upper part of this plant drops distil 
from it, which can hardly be distinguished from the genuine 
mastich. There is, again, a third sort,^^ found in Pontus, but ' 
more like bitumen than anything else. The most esteemed, 
however, of all these, is the white mastich of Chios, the price 
of which is twenty denarii per pound, while the black mastich j 
sells at twelve. It is said that the mastich of Chios exudes i! 
from the lentisk in the form of a sort of gum : like franks 1 
incense, it is adulterated with resin. I 
CHAP. 37. LADANTJM AND STOBOLON. 
Arabia, too, still boasts of her ladanum.^* Many writers i 
20 What this was is now unknown. Fee suggests that it may have been j 
bdellium, which is found in considerable quantities in the myrrh that is 
imported at the present day. 
21 This is most probably the meaning of Pliny! s expression — Ergo 
transit in mastichen though Hardouin reads it as meaning that myrrh 
sometimes degenerates to mastich : and Fee, understanding the passage in 
the same sense, remarks that the statement is purely fabulous. Mastich, 
he says, is the produce of the Pistacia lentiscus of Linnaeus, which abounds 
in Greece and the other parts of southern Europe. The greater part of 
the mastich of commerce comes from the island of Ohio. It is impossible 
to conjecture to what plant Pliny here alludes, with the head of a thistle. 
22 This kind, Fee says, is quite unknown to the moderns. 
23 This substance is still gathered from the Cistus creticus of Linnaeus, 
which is supposed to be the same as the plant leda, mentioned by Pliny. 
It is also most probably the same as the Cisthon, mentioned by Pliny in 
B. xxiv. c. 48. It is very commonly found in Spain. The substance is 
gathered from off the leaves, not by the aid of goats, but with whips fur- 
nished with several thongs, with which the shrubs are beaten. There are 
two sorts of ladanum known in commerce ; the one friable, and mixed with 
earthy substances, and known as *' ladanum in tortis the other black, and 
