Am  ja^iS?™*}  Plants  of  Afghanistan.  41 
In  early  spring  great  cabbage-like  heads  are  to  be  seen  distributed 
at  intervals  amongst  the  asafoetida  plants.  Their  peculiar  forms  rep- 
resent the  primary  stage  of  the  flower  heads,  enclosed  and  completely 
covered  up  by  the  large  sheathing  stipules  of  its  leaves.  In  a  few 
days  these  heads  become  transformed  into  the  semblance  of  a  cauli- 
flower; from  this  period  the  stem  bearing  the  inflorescence  rapidly 
shoots  upwards  to  a  height  of  from  four  to  five  feet,  its  proportions 
being  singularly  massive  and  pillar-like.  From  a  general  calculation 
I  found  that  only  one  out  of  a  hundred  plants  bore  a  flowering  stem. 
If  you  ask  a  native  what  plant  this  is,  pointing  to  a  flower-bearing 
one,  he  will  tell  you  that  it  is  "  kurne-kema/'  and  that  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  plants  that  yield  asafoetida.  He  will  take  out  his 
knife,  remove  the  head,  cut  the  stem  from  its  base,  strip  off  the  few 
sheathing  stipules  that  are  still  adherent  to  the  stem,  and  in  his  hand 
you  see  what  looks  like  a  very  large  cucumber :  from  this  he  will  re- 
move the  dark-green  cuticle,  and  then  slice  away  at  the  deliciously 
cool,  soft,  crisp,  copiously  milky  stem,  and  eat  slice  after  slice  with 
the  greatest  gusto,  and  then  say,  "  Did  I  not  tell  you  it  was  the  edible 
kema,  and  not  asafoetida"?'7  "Yes/'  says  an  onlooker.  "You  will 
stink  like  a  camel  for  the  next  three  months  I"  The  method  of  col- 
lecting the  drug,  as  far  as  I  could  learn,  was  as  follows:  A  few  men, 
employed  for  the  purpose  by  some  capitalist  at  Herat,  are  sent  to 
these  asafoetida-bearing  plains  during  June.  These  take  .with  them 
provisions,  consisting  of  flour,  and  several  donkey-loads  of  water- 
melons, the  latter  in  lieu  of  water,  which  is  not  only  scarce  there,  but 
usually  saline.  The  men  begin  their  work  by  laying  bare  the  root  stock 
to  a  depth  of  a  couple  of  inches  of  those  plants  only  which  have  not 
as  yet  reached  their  flower-bearing  stage.  They  then  cut  off  a  slice 
from  the  top  of  the  root  stock,  from  which  at  once  a  quantity  of- milky 
juice  exudes,  which  my  informant  told  me  was  not  collected  then. 
They  next  proceeded  to  cover  over  the  root  by  means  of  a  domed 
structure,  of  from  six  to  eight  inches  in  height,  called  a  Jchora,  formed 
of  twigs  and  covered  with  clay,  leaving  an  opening  towards  the  north, 
thus  protecting  the  exposed  roots  from  the  rays  of  the  sun.  The  drug 
collectors  return  in  about  five  or  six  weeks'  time,  and  it  was  at  this 
stage  that  the  process  of  collecting  came  under  my  personal  observation. 
A  thick  gummy,  not  milky,  reddish  substance  now  appeared  in  more 
or  less  irregular  lumps  upon  the  exposed  surface  of  the  roots,  which 
looked  to  me  exactly  like  the  ordinary  asafoetida  of  commerce,  as 
