250 
PLANTS. 
23. Mimofa Nilotica B . Gum Arabic Acacia. 
The Arabs call it Charad. This plant, and not 
the Mimofa Senegal Linn. Spec. PI. 1506. 32. as 
naturalifts have hitherto imagined, produces the 
Gummi Arabicum (Gum Arabic) Gummi Thuris 
(Frankincenfe) and the Succus Acaciae. 
N. B. This fpecies, and the Mimofa Senegal, 
grow together promifeuoufly : hence it happened, 
that the Mimofa Senegal having been by chance 
brought to Europe, inflead of the Mimofa Nilotica, 
and Alpinus not having diftinguifhed one from the 
other, the Mimofa Senegal was by all writers in 
Botany, and Materia medica, believed to be the 
plant that produced the above-mentioned gums ; but 
the true plant was only known to thofe who culti' 
vated it in Egypt. The Egyptians know one from 
the other extremely well, and have given them dif- 
ferent names, calling the true one Charad, and the 
other, which is neither of ufe nor value, Fetne. 
They both grow in Lower Egypt, where they are 
planted in gardens: I have, however, feen them 
grow wild in the fandy defart, near the anciem 
Sepulchres of the Egyptians, and have been i 11 
formed that the Mimofa nilotica (Acacia vera) gr oJ s 
plentifully in feveral parts of Upper Egypt. Tb 6 
gum is gathered in vaft quantities from the trees 
growing in Arabia Petrtea, near the North Bay 0 
the Red Sea, at the foot of mount Sinai, when c 
they bring the Gum Thus (Frankincenfe) fo calie^ 
by the dealers in drugs in Egypt, from Thur a ^ 
Thor, which is the name of a harbour in the Nor 
Bay of the Red Sea, near mount Sinai, thereby d 
* S P- PI * Pa 2‘ ' 5 ° 6 - N> 34 * tingu ifhing 
