2 BULLETIN 824, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Pyre thrum is a section of the genus Chrysanthemum, which 
belongs to the Composite. The following good description of the 
two species of Pyrethrum commonly used for preparing insect powder 
is given in Bailey's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, vol. 2, 
p. 757 (New York, 1914): 
Chrysanthemum coccineum, Willd. (Pyrethrum roseum, Bieb., not Web. & Mohr., 
P. hybridum, Hort.). Glaubrous perennial, 1-2 ft. high; stem usually unbranched, 
rarely branched at the top; leaves thin, dark green, or in dried specimens dark brown; 
involucral scales with a brown margin; rays white or red in such shades as pink, 
carmine, rose, lilac, and crimson, and sometimes tipped yellow, but never wholly 
yellow. Caucasus, Persia. 
Chrysanthemum cinerarisefolium, Vis. Glaucous perennial, slender, 12-15 in. high; 
stems un branched, with a few short, scattered hairs below the flower; leaves long- 
petioled, silky beneath, with distant segments ; involucral scales scarious and whitish 
at the apex. Dalmatia. 
HISTORY. 
While all accounts of the early history of insect powder do not 
agree, the fact that the flowers of certain species of Pyrethrum 
possessed the property of killing various insects was known to the 
people of eastern Europe more than a century ago. Thus, according 
to Siedler (257), insect flowers have been known for more than 100 
years in Dalmatia, under the name "Polvere de Pulisi." 
The first published reference to the nature of insect powder was 
made in 1851 by Koch (161), who stated that the flowers of P. roseum 
and P. carneum yield the celebrated Persian insect powder. Another 
early writer on insect powder stated that its nature was kept a secret 
from western Europe until early in the nineteenth century, when 
Sumttoff (5), an Armenian merchant, while traveling in the Caucasian 
region, discovered that insect powder was made from the ground 
flower heads of Pyrethrum roseum and P. carneum. In 1818 Sumt- 
toff's son began the manufacture of the powder on a large scale, and 
about the same time the powder was first exported in large quantities 
to European countries. It is said, however, that for some time 
before 1818 Russia had been consuming upward of 200,000 pounds 
annually. Browne (38), Riley (223), and several later writers give 
the same account of the discovery of the nature of insect powder, 
except that the name of the first manufacturer appears as Jumtikoff 
(7), and the first year of manufacture as 1828. Noodt (205), in 1858, 
stated that insect powder was known to the inhabitants of Trans- 
caucasia as "guirila." In this connection it may be of interest to 
know that the name Buhach, applied to insect powder made from 
flowers grown in California, is derived from the Slavonic word Buha, 
which signifies a flea. The word Buhach, however, does not appear 
in the Slavonic language (55). 
According to MacOwan (184), the nature of insect powder was made 
known to Russian military authorities in the Caucasus by some 
Tcherkess prisoners. The cantonments there swarmed with fleas 
