15 
large cakes covered with matting. In order to pack it in chests it is 
necessary to soften with boiling water the coarser sorts, the head 
benjamin is broken into pieces and exposed to the heat of the sun 
which proves sufficient to run it down. 
Marsden does not give a clear enough description of the tree to 
show whether it is truly Styrax Benzoin he talks of. He says the tree 
does not grow to any considerable size and is never used for timber. 
The seeds are round, of a brown colour, and about the size of a 
moderate bolus. The leaves are rough, crisp, inclining to curl at. the 
point (perhaps he only saw dry ones) and yield a very strong scent re- 
sembling that of turpentine. 
Teysmann saw the cultivation in the neighbourhood of Batang 
Leko in Sumatra, the t-ee being planted 15 feet apart. 
It does not seem to have ever been cultivated in the Malay 
Peninsula. 
Siam Benzoin. 
The Benzoin of Siam as found in commerce has long been sus- 
pected to have a different origin from the Sumatran Benzoin, but till 
lately it has apparently been impossible to get any reliable infoima- 
tion about it, or specimens of the tree. Mr. E. M. Holmes, the 
well-known curator of the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, has 
for many years been endeavouring to trace up this plant, and has 
recently been able to procure fresh information on the subject, but 
still much remains unknown. Mr. Jamie, a former resident of Singa- 
pore, possessed a garden containing many rare plants, among which 
was a Siam Benzoin tree, and from this tree sent to the Pharmaceuti- 
cal Society a twig with leaves, in 1883. At Mr. Holmes request I 
visited this once famous garden in 1889, and found it had passed into 
Chinese hands and been 'neglected and I was unable to find any trace 
of the tree Further attempts were made by Mr. Holmes and myselt 
to obtain specimens from Siam without success. Residents in Siam 
told me that the tree did not occur near Bangkok but very far up- 
country in Laos. Recently, however, Herr Rordorf of Basle obtained 
from his brother-in-law, Dr. Nuwenhuis, Dutch Ministei in Siam, 
some specimens of the tree and resin from the north-west provinces 
of Kiang Mai near the source of the river Meping, and describes 
them in the Schweizirische Wochenschrift and Mr. Holmes gives an 
account of this paper, with further notes on the resin, in the 
Pharmaceutical Society's Journal, Oct. 29, 1910, p. 5 * 5 - d he leaves are 
described as II to 12 inches long and 4 to 5 inches wide, leathery, 
longish. ovate and acuminate, the margins slightly undulate and 
entire. The upper surface dark olive green and glabrous with promin- 
ent veins, the undersurface paler, olive green with abundant appres^ed 
stellate hairs. This description clearly shows that the plant is quite 
distinct from the Malayan 5 . Benzoin. The leaves are nearly twice 
