355 
F E R 
t 9 ie ftalk decays focm after; when this is dry, it is full 
of a light pith which eafily takes fire. The Sicilians ufe 
it for tinder. Hence the fable of Prometheus. The leaves 
decay foon after the feeds are formed ; but the roots con¬ 
tinue feveral years, efpecially in a dry foil, and annually 
produce flowers and feeds. Native of Italy, Sicily, the 
■fouth of France, Greece, &c. In Apulia, where it grows 
in great plenty, it is grateful to the buffaloes, which form 
the chief part of the fubftance of many farmers there. 
When it becomes of a conflderable fize, they ufe it to 
make ftools and bee-hives. It was cultivated by Gerarde 
before 1597; and he informs 11s, that it attained to the 
height of fourteen or fifteen feet in his garden, growing 
greater and fairer than in the places whence it came. 
2. Ferula glauca, or glaucous fennel-giant: leaves fuper- 
decompound ; leaflets lanceolate-linear, flat. The leaves 
are compofed of many narrow flat fegments, of a grey co¬ 
lour, and are divided into many parts; ftem from three 
to four feet high, terminated by tin umbel of yellow flow¬ 
ers, appearing in July, and fucceeded by oval compreffed 
feeds, ripening in autumn. Native of Spain, Italy, and 
Sicily. Cultivated in 1768, by Mr. Miller. 
3. Ferula tingitana, or Tangier fennel-giant : leaflets 
laciniate, the little jags three-toothed, unequal, brilliant. 
It is a native of Spain and Barbary ; and was cultivated 
in 16S3, by Mr. James Sutherland. 
4. Ferula ferulago, or broad-leaved fennel-giant: leaves 
pinnatifid, pinnas linear, flat, trifid - Height (even or eight 
feet. The umbels are large, and the flowers are yellow. 
Native of Sicily, 
5. Ferula orientalis, or narrow-leaved fennel-giant : 
pinnas of the leaves naked at the bafe, leaflets briftle- 
form. This is of much humbler growth than either of 
the former ; the (talks feldom riling much more than three 
feet high. The lower leaves branch into many divifions, 
with fine briftle-Ihaped leaflets. The umbel of flowers 
and the feeds are fmall. Found in the Levant, by 
Tournefort. 
6. Ferula meoides, or fpignel-leaved fennel.giant: pin- 
nas of the leaves appendicled on each fide, leaflets briftle- 
form. This has very branching leaves, with angular 
channelled foot-flalks. At every joint are two oppofite 
branches ; thofe towards the bottom are nine or ten inches 
Jong, and the others diminifli gradually to the top : thefe 
fide-branches fend out fmaller ones at each joint in the 
fame manner, having very fine leaves on them, like thofe 
of fpignel or meum, (landing quite round in fhape of 
whorls. The flower-ftalks are three feet high, having a 
pretty large umbel of yellow flowers at the top : thefe 
are fucceeded by oval flat feeds, which ripen in the au¬ 
tumn. Native of the Levant. 
7. Ferula nodiflora, or knotted fennel-giant: leaflets 
appendicled, umbels feflile. This is about three feet high. 
Native of Iftria, Auftria, and Carniola. 
8. Ferula Canadenfis, or Canadian fennel giant: lucid. 
See Angelica lucida ; from which, however, the fpeci- 
men in Gronovius’s Herbarium, now in the poffeflion of 
fir Jofeph Banks, is very different. 
9. Ferula afla-fcetida, or afla-foetida : leaves alternately 
finuate, obtufe. The affa-foetida, as defcribed by Dr. 
Hope, is an umbelled plant, three feet high, upright, 
branched, glaucous, with a yellow flower. Root peren¬ 
nial. Root-leaves fix, procumbent, three-lobed-ovate, 
many times pinnate ; leaflets gafhed, fubacute, fubdecur- 
rent; common petiole flat above, with a railed line run¬ 
ning longitudinally through the middle of it. Stem two 
feet high, roundifli, annual, (lightly (Leaked, having only 
one pair of imperfeCt leaves about the middle. Fruit 
oblong. Every part of the plant, when wounded, poured 
out a rich milky juice, refembling the imported drug.in 
ftnell and tafte, and at times a fmell like garlic, fuch as a 
faint impregnation of afla-foetida yields, was perceivable 
at the diftance of feveral feet. 
Though afla-foetida has been ufed in medicine for many 
U L A. 
ages, having been introduced by the Arabian phyficians 
near a thoufand years ago, yet there was no fatisfaCtory 
account of the plant which yielded it, till Kasmpfer de- 
fcribcd and figured it in his Amoenitates Exoticae, pnb- 
liihed in 1712. Ksempfer travelled over a great part of 
Afia towards the end of the lad century, and was in 
Perfia, upon the fpot where this drug is collected. ' His 
plant differs in many refpeCts from that which is defcribed 
above ; but his fidelity having never been impeached, we 
mu ft conclude that this gum, like feveral others, is the 
produce of more than one fpecies. According to Ktcmpfer, 
the plant which yields this valuable gum refin, and called 
in Perfia hingijch , is found abundantly on the mountains 
around Heraat, the capital town of the province of CI10- 
rafan, and in the province of Laar, which extends from 
the river Cuur to the town of Congo on the Perfian gulf. 
Beyond this, on the Arabian fide, the plant is faid to lofe 
much of its ftrong odour and acrid quality, fo that goats 
browze upon it with great delight and advantage. The 
ticher the foil, the more valuable is the gum. The prin¬ 
cipal harveft of this fubftance is made on the mountains 
around the fmall town of Difguum, in the province of 
Laar. 
The root of the hingifeh grows for many years increas¬ 
ing in fize, till fooner or later it fends forth the flowering 
umbelliferous ftem, after which, on the fucceeding year, 
the whole plant perifhes. The crop of gum therefore is 
procured from the root before the time of flowering. 
When the root is four years old, it is about the thicknefs 
of a man’s arm, and of conflderable length ; it feldom 
yields any gum before this age, and the older it is, the 
greater is the quantity of produCt. The root is heavy, 
fmooth externally, when growing in a rich foil; but fcaly 
in a fandy foil. It is often found bifurcated, or further 
divided, at about a foot below the furface. The upper 
part, which rifes above the foil, is thickly befet with 
fhort fibres Handing up like hairs. The rind of the root 
is ealily feparable when frefti, the fubftance within is 
fmooth and moift, confiding of a tough fibrous part, in- 
clofing a pulpy cellular portion, full of an oily white 
juice, of a moft intenfely foetid fmell, which when ex- 
poled to the air becomes firft clammy and yellow, and 
at laft hardens into the gum afla-foetida. The intendty 
of the fmell is the teft of the goodnefs of the gum, and 
the odour of the frefli juice, or recent gum, is beyond 
all comparifon more fcetid than that of the gum as it rs 
received by us. Nicholfon fays, that a (ingle dram of 
the frefli juice fmells more than a hundred pounds of 
the dry afla-foetida brought to us. Hence, in the gather, 
ing feafon, the whole town of Difguum fmells of it; 
a fingle (hip is exclufively devoted to tranfporting the 
bulk of this commodity to the ports in the Perfian gulf; 
and in carrying fmaller parcels they are tied to the top 
of the muft, to prevent their infeCting every thing on¬ 
board. In a fiiort time, however, this intenlity of fmell 
goes off. 
The whole gathering of the afla-foetida is performed by 
the inhabitants of Difguum, in four different journeys to 
the mountains. The demand for the article in foreign 
countries being firft afcertained to be fufftcient to indem¬ 
nify the trouble of collecting, the gatherers divide into 
companies of four or five each, and proceed to the moun¬ 
tains about the middle of April, when the leaves of the 
plant are turned yellow and decaying, a fign that the root 
is in a proper date to yield the juice. The firft operation 
is to remove the foil for a hand’s breadth from the phint, 
and to (trip off. the leaves and the hair-like fibres, leaving 
the root perfectly bare and fmooth, which is again earthed 
round, and covered with a bundle of its own, or any 
other leaves at hand, to fcreen it from the fun. Thefe 
bundles of leaves are confined by a large (lone, left the 
wind (liould blow them off; for, without this precaution, 
the heat of the Tun would deftroy the roots in a day’s 
time, and the juice would be lpoiled. Each party of 
four 
