THE PLANT PRODUCING GUM AMMONIAC. 263 
white, or when any substance enters into their composition 
having an alkaline reaction. 
That the benzoated and populinated greases are preferable 
to other fatty bodies, and that the latter resists oxidation 
better than any other fatty body. — From the Journal de 
Pharmcie et Chimie. 
A. D. 
ART. LXII. — THE PLANT PRODUCING GUM AMMONIAC. 
By A. Richard. 
In a magnificent work, Illustrations of Plants of the 
East, of which six livraisons have hitherto appeared in 
small folio, each containing ten plates, Messieurs Jaubert 
and Spach have described and figured, under the name of 
Diserneston gummiferum, (p. 70 to 40,) a large umbelli- 
ferous plant, found in Persia by the intrepid traveller, Au- 
cher Eloy, and which there produces gum ammoniac. The 
characters assigned to this plant, of which the authors have 
thought that they ought to form a new genus, under the 
name of Diserneston, have convinced us that it is not new, 
as has been supposed by them. It appears to us to be the 
same as that already described by Mr. Don, several years 
ago, (Philos. Mag.) under the name of Dorema ammoni- 
acum, and of which we published a very full description in 
the third edition of our Histoire Naturelle Medicale. For 
those who compare the characters that Messrs. Jaubert and 
Spach have given of their Diserneston gummiferum, it will 
be easy to recognize the same plant that Mr. Don has named 
Dorema ammoniacum. In fact it is a plant of which the bi- 
pinnate leaves, with very large folioles, confluent at base, re- 
