PISTACIA LENTISCUS.— MASTIC *TEEE. 
Class XXII. DICECIA. Order V. PENTANDRIA. 
Natural Order, ANACARD I ACEiE. THE CASHEW TRIBE. 
Fig. («) represents a female flower magnified; (6) male flowers; (c) back view of a female flower, shewing the five-cleft calyx. 
The Mastic-tree is a native of the south of Europe and the Levant, and appears by Evelyn’s Kalendarium 
Hortense to have been cultivated in Britain so early as 1664. It is less hardy than the Chian turpentine- 
tree, requiring the shelter of a green-house; hence it never attains here any degree of perfection. In Italy it 
is very common, flowering in April, as well as in the island of Scio, where its resin, called mastic, is chiefly 
obtained, and where different varieties are consequently cultivated with care. It differs from every other 
known Pistacia in having no odd leaflet, as well as in its simply racemose inflorescence. 
This tree, which seldom exceeds twelve feet in height, and eight or ten inches in diameter, is covered 
with a smooth brown bark, and towards the top sends off numerous branches. The leaves are abruptly 
pinnate, consisting of five or six opposite pairs of narrow ovate leaflets, of a dark green colour on the upper, 
and pale on the under side. They are smooth, pointed at each end, and tipped at the point with a minute 
curved spine; sessile or closely attached to the common footstalk, which is winged or furnished with a 
narrow foliaceous expansion on each side, running from one pair of leaflets to the other. The flowers 
appear in simple axillary racemes in April and May. In the male flowers, the calyx is divided into 
five minute ovate segments; the filaments are four or five in number, very short, and supporting large, 
brown, erect, quadrangular anthers. Th e female, like those of the male, have no corolla, and are placed 
upon a common peduncle in alternate order ; the calyx consists of three small squamous segments ; the 
germen is egg-shaped, larger than the calyx, and supports two or three styles, with reflexed clubbed 
stigmas. The fruit is an obovate, smooth, reddish drupe, containing a smooth nut. 
In the island of Chios, the officinal mastic is obtained most abundantly, according to Tournefort, by 
making transverse incisions in the bark of the tree about the beginning of August, from which the resin 
exudes in drops, and hardening on the trees, or running down and concreting on the ground, is thence 
collected for use. The time chosen for making these incisions is the first of August, when the weather is 
very dry; during the following day the mastic begins to appear in drops, which continue to exude till the 
latter end of September. According to Olivier (Travels in the Ottoman Empire) mastic is gathered in 
twenty-one villages of the island of Scio; and the incisions, he says, are made from the 15th to the 20th of 
July, according to the Greek calendar. Cloths are frequently placed under the tree, so that the mastic 
which trickles from it may not be contaminated with earth and other impurities. By the regulations made 
in the island, the first gathering cannot take place before the 27th of August. It lasts eight successive 
days, after which fresh incisions are made in the trees till the 25th of September, and then the second 
gathering is made, which likewise lasts eight days. After this time the trees are cut no more, but the mastic 
which continues to run is collected till the 19th of November, on the Monday and Tuesday of every week. 
It is afterwards forbidden to gather this production, which in the twenty-one villages of Scio, amounts on 
an average to 50,000 o/ces, and even more : twenty-one thousand belong to the aga, who farms this com- 
modity, and are delivered by the cultivators in payment of their personal impost. They are paid for the 
surplus at the rate of 50 paras per oke, (nearly 16 sous the pound,) and they are prohibited, under very 
severe penalties, from selling or disposing of it to any other than the aga who farms it. That of the best, 
and finest quality is sent to Constantinople, for the palace of the Sultan; that of the second quality is in- 
tended for Cairo. The merchants generally obtain a mixture of the second and third quality. The lentisc 
or mastic-tree is raised in various parts of Europe, particularly in Italy and Portugal, but no resin is said to 
issue from it in these climates. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Mastic, which is brought to us in yellowish semi-trans- 
parent brittle grains or tears, is nearly inodorous, except when rubbed or heated, when it exhales an agree- 
able odour. It is almost tasteless ; and when chewed it is soft and tough, like wax, but soon becomes 
white, opaque, and brittle ; hence it is frequently employed by surgeons for stopping carious teeth. In 
Turkey great quantities of it are chewed for sweetening the breath and strengthening the gums ; and it is 
to this use of the resin as a masticatory, that it is supposed to owe its name. Its specific gravity is 1,074. 
