224 
ON SUMBUL OR JATAMANSI. 
not a stalk ; although the word sumbul is applied in India, it ap- 
pears, to a plant and to portions of a plant, employed as a perfume, 
formerly as an incense in religious ceremonies, and also as a medi- 
cine. W. Jones has asserted the true sumbul to be a species of 
valerian, known equally well among the Hindoos and Brahmins 
by the name of jatamansi. According to M. Granville, however, 
it is rather a plant of the family umbelliferae, an aquatic plant, or 
living upon the margin of streams. 
It has been, by mistake, stated that the sumbul grows in Hin- 
dostan. It is not found in any portion of the Indian territory oc- 
cupied by the English. 
It appears that it grows in Bootan and the mountains of 
Nepaul, and that although immense quantities of the dried plant 
are exported, no botanist has yet been enabled to describe the 
characters of a living specimen. A law of the country, it is said, 
prohibits the export of the living plant without the special authori- 
zation of the sovereign. 
The sumbul does not present itself, as has been generally stated, 
in the form of a mass of leaves and roots of a greenish color, 
crumpled and pressed together. This error arose from the fact of 
a sample of this substance shown at St. Petersburg, having been 
previously mixed with a strong decoction of this same substance, 
which is of a greenish color. On the contrary, it appears as a 
thick, homogeneous root of two, three, or even four inches in 
diameter, cut into fragments of an inch or an inch and a half long, 
the section of which shows a fibrous texture and a yellowish 
white color. It is brought from the centre of Asia to Moscow, 
by way of Kiatka. 
In all good samples of sumbul, the external envelope or epider- 
mis, is found of a sombre or light brown color ; a greater depth 
of color, indicating greater age in the specimen whence de- 
rived. 
This epidermis is very thin and strongly wrinkled. The inner 
substance is composed of coarse fibres, irregular and easily sepa- 
rated one from another, after having detached, the outer envelope, 
indicating a porous structure, resembling that of aquatic plants. 
If, after the removal of the epidermis an oblique or transverse sec- 
tion is made, an external layer white and veined is perceived, and* 
an inner layer, thicker and of a yellowish hue. With the aid of a 
