90 
THE FRANKINCENSE OP THE ANCIENTS. 
Juniperus lycia is not the true Olibanum tree, notwithstanding the high authority 
to the contrary. 
Mr. D. Turnbull, Surgeon to the Residency of Magpur, in the East Indies, 
furnished some particulars respecting the tree which produced the Olibanum used 
in the Indian temples, which led to its discovery and identification. He accom- 
panied Mr. Colehrooke in his route to Barar, in 1798, and during the journey they 
met with numbers of the Salai tree in the mountain forests between Sone and 
Magpur ; on his return to the station at Mirzapore he procured large quantities of 
the gum, and forwarded it to Europe, where, on comparison with samples of the 
Arabian, although it was less pure, and differed in several minor particular^, it was 
universally decided to be the true Olibanum of commerce. And from this source in 
the present day the greater part of Europe is supplied. A subsequent examination 
of the tree has proved it to be the plant known to botanists under the name of 
Boswellia seerata. 
All the species of Bosivellia are natives of India, and form trees of varied heights. 
They abound in a balsamiferous resin, with imparipinnate leaves, and nearly opposite 
serrated leaflets. The flowers are inconspicuous, and disposed in racemes and 
panicles, and their fruit is capsular. 
Boswellia seerata (figure a) forms a tree fifty feet or more high. Branches 
upright, smooth. Foliage crowded at the extremities of the branches. Leaves 
imparipinnate; leaflets 13 to 19, ovate, oblong, obtuse, taper-pointed, serrated, 
villous, on short downy petioles. Racemes axillary, simple, many-flowered, bracteate. 
Floivers hermaphrodite. Calyx monophyllous, five to ten- toothed, pubescent ; teeth 
acute. Petals five, oblong-lanceolate, acute, of a pale rosy pink, with the edges 
incumbent in aestivation. Stamens ten, spreading, seated round a disk. Bisk cup- 
shaped, fleshy, crenulate, coloured, adherent to the calyx. Ovary slightly triangular, 
three-celled ; ovules solitary. Style short, capitate, somewhat trilobate. Capsule 
dry, smooth, triangular, three-celled, three-valved. Seeds broad, cordate, winged. 
The wood is heavy, hard, and durable, and is used for various purposes. The 
tree is called by Colebrooke Lihanos thurifera, and Roxburgh, in his “ Hortus 
Bengalensis,'" (p. 32,) names it Boswellia thurifera. The resin is used throughout 
India, not only as incense, but also as pitch ; for this purpose, being hard and brittle, 
it is boiled with some low-priced oil to render it soft and manageable. 
Boswellia glabra. — A deciduous tree, growing seventy or eighty feet high, 
also produces a similar gum, but its fragrance being less grateful, it is seldom used 
for any other purpose except as pitch . most of the India shipping are pitched with 
this. It is called by the natives of Coromandel Gugulapootschittoo. 
Notwithstanding it has been clearly ascertained that the Olibanum used as 
incense in India, and supplied from that quarter to Europe, is the product of 
Boswellia serrata, the Salai of the natives, it is yet not equally clear, that all the| 
gum used in Arabia and Egypt is supplied by the same tree, but rather the| 
contrary, especiafly as until the discoveries made by Messrs. Turnbull and 
