13 
In trade, there are two forms of Benzoin used, the Palembang 
benzoin, which is undoubtedly the produce of Styrax Benzoin, and 
Siam Benzoin. This latter is believed to be derived from a different 
tree and is reported to come from Laos. Up to the present time, 
however, no one has obtained any botanical material enabling us to 
decide from what tree it is derived, although many attempts have 
been made to induce people living in Siam to procure specimens. 
The Sumatra, or Palembang tree, inhabits dense forests at low eleva- 
tions and attains a height of 60 to 80 feet or more with smooth grey 
bark. The leaves are lanceolate acuminate light green above, white 
or whitish beneath. The flowers in panicles or racemes are white 
and very fragrant, calyx cup shaped pale green corolla half an inch 
long of five narrow reflexed lanceolate lobes. 
The stamens are adnate to the tube, 10 in number, with long narrow 
conspicuous orange anthers. Style straight and slender, a little longer, 
The fruit is globose, flattened at each end, pale greyish green V 2 -l 
inch across, with rather thick, hard pulp, green and two hemispheric 
brown seeds, rounded on the back and flat on the inner face. 
The tree- flowers in quite a small state when it is about 12 feet 
tall, and is worth cultivating for its fragrant and pretty flowers. 
It is very abundant in many parts of our forests, where the 
ground may be often found strewed with its fruit. 
The Benzoin produced by the Malay Peninsula tree seems to be 
quite as good as that from Palembang, but for some reason the 
natives here seldom trouble to collect it. 
The resin does not flow readily when the tree is cut, and the bark 
has no scent or signs of it at first, but about a fortnight or so after 
the infliction of a wound it exudes and often trickles down the bark. 
The form that the resin appears in usually in the market is in 
cubic blocks of a brown colour, containing opaque yellowish white 
tears or almonds, with a good deal of debris of bark and wood. The 
more of the tears in the mass the more valuable is the Ben/, m. 
The Sumatran Benzoin is not valued as highly as the Siamese kind, 
having a less strong and pleasant odour, and also being less pure. 
Fluckiger and H anbury mention a Penang Benjamin or Storax- 
smelling Benjamin which differed in scent and appearance, being of 
a finer quality. It probably came from Sumatra. Benzoin is chiefly 
used in the manufacture of incense both in the East and in the 
churches of the West. The crude produce is readily sublimed, form- 
ing a strongly scented white mass of crystals. A Malay, I formerly 
knew, used to heat the crude drug in a small earthen chatty which 
was covered with a long cone of paper and cardboard about two 
feet in length, the sublimed Benzoin was deposited on the walls 
of the cone inside in the form of a white crystalline powder, which 
he sold to the natives as a drug at an enhanced price. 
