154 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
^ Amongst Playfair's dried specimens of Mohr Add and Mohr 
Madow, were the leaves of a variety of each, which he said yielded an i 
inferior olibanum, called Luban bedowi. 
“ Carter's plant never flowered with me, nor until last year would 
Playfair's. But he had planted duplicates of the cuttings he sent to me, 
in the romantic little gardens laid out by him near the celebrated tanks 
of Aden. They had not flowered before he left Aden for Zanzibar ; but J 
when passing Aden in June 1867, he found that one of the plants had 
flowered, and he sent its flowers to Kew. When I saw these in July 
1867, it was not known to which kind they belonged, as Playfair had 
not picked any leaves with them. I therefore on my way back to ! 
Bombay, in November 1867, visited the gardens, and found from the 
gardener that it was Mohr Madow that had flowered the previous June. 
Seeing the plants were leafing too much, I left directions to water them 
less abundantly than they had been, and to send me any flowers that 
they produced. On reaching Bombay, I also stopped watering the plants 
in Victoria Gardens, the Agri-IIorticultural Society's new Gardens 
in Bombay, and early in the monsoon of last year Mohr Add flowered. 
In September last, I was again at Aden, and then found Yegaar in full 
bloom." Transact. Linn. Soc. XXVII, 137-138.1 
Uses and History : — It is probable that several species yield the true 
Frankincense or Olibanum of commerce, but the most important, perhaps 
is Boswellia Garterii. These balsamiferous trees inhabit the south coast 
of Arabia and the Somali coast of Africa to Cape Guardafui* 1 2 3 
There is no doubt that the Hebrew f lebonah ' meant frankincense. 
The same word with slight dialectical modifications, occurs in the kindred 
languages : f lebunta ' or f lebonta ' in Aramaic, f lebunto ' in Syriac and 
< loban ' in Arabic. From the Semitic languages the word passed into 
Greek under the form f libanos ' which was invariably employed in the 
Septuagint for the translation of the Hebrew f lebonah,' whilst the 
Vulgate translated it into ‘ thus '. The root of the word is ‘ laban ' i.e. 
‘ to be white ', which indicates that the name was first given to the 
1 Interesting particulars regarding Arabian and African Gums and Resins will be 
found in the Journal Bombay Br. Roy. As. Soc. Vol. II, 1848 (by Carter) ; Transact. Bom- 
bay Geogr. Soc. Vol. VII, 1846 (by Cruttenden); Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc. Vol. XL II, 1872 
• (by Miles). 
3 On the so-called Indian Olibanum Tree (Boswellia serrata Roxb.= B. glabra Hoxb,*=B 
thurifera Colebrooke) vide : • 
Taleef Shereef, translated by Playfair, 1833, p. 146. 
Moodeen Sheriff. Mort. Med. Mad. 1891, p. 96 — 99. 
Biscoe. List of Hyderabad Trees, 1895, p. 3. 
Kanny Lai Dey. Indigenous Drugs of India, 1896, p. 50. 
Watt. Diet. Economic Prod. Ind. I, 511 — 17. 
Watt. Comm. Prod. Ind. 1908, p. 174. 
