Plant yielding, A fa foetid a. 
et thinks never was cultivated in any European garden, and 
which nobody has been fo fortunate as to raife from feed but 
• 6 himfelf, though the feeds fent to the Academy from the 
€< mountains of Chilian in Perfia had been diftributed among 
• 6 feveral curious per fons.” 
Both thefe roots were planted in the open ground, in the 
Botanic Garden at Edinburgh ; one died ; the other after fome 
time did well, and laft fummer flowered and produced feed. I 
had an accurate drawing of the plant made by Mr. Fife, which 
I now have the pleafure of laying before the Society. It ex- 
preffes very well the general habit of the plant, which was of 
a pale fea- green colour, and grew to the height of three 
feet. The hem is deciduous, but the root is perennial. 
Every part of the plant, when wounded, poured out a rich 
milky juice, refembling in fmell and tafte Afa fcetida ; and at 
times a fmell refembling garlick, fuch as a faint impregnation 
of Afa foetida yields, was perceivable at the difhmce of feveral 
feet. 
In Perfia, at the proper feafon, the root is cut over once and 
again ; from the incifions there flows a thick juice like cream, 
which, thickened, is the Afa foetida. 
I have only further to obferve, that as the plant grows li* 
the open air, without protection,- and even in an unfavourable 
feafon produced ' a good deal of feed, and as the juice feerns to 
be of the fame nature with the officinal Afa foetida, there is 
fome reafon to hope, that it may become an article of cultiWi^ 
tion in this country of no inconfiderable importance, 
Edinburgh, Jan. 1783. 
