ESSAY ON SCAMMONY. 
3 
sus of Linn., a Maderia plant with slender roots, and no 
appreciable quantity of resin, cannot now be ascertained, 
for there is no specimen of C.farinosus in his herbarium." 
Professor Lindley has further shown, that if the reading of 
the Aldine edition of Dioscorides, of 1499, be taken, in 
which the Greek word for tfiick instead of that for hairy is 
employed, as applied to the branches, the description agrees 
with the modern plant. 
Matthiolus, the chief commentator upon Dioscorides, in 
his Latin translation, renders the description in the same 
manner. Upon consulting the edition of his work published 
by Bauhin, at Basil in 1598, it does not appear that any 
doubt existed with respect to the plant described by Dios- 
corides, and that which was placed at the disposal of the 
translator, by the Imperial Ambassador at Turkey, (Seig- 
neur Angerius de Busbecke,) from the court of the Empe- 
ror Ferdinand. Of the plant thus procured he has given 
an excellent figure, which corresponds with those since 
published by Woodville and Nees von Esenbeck. This 
is the C, syriacus of Morrison cultivated in England, by 
Collinson. 
The locality to which Dioscorides referred the best scam- 
mony was Mysia, a portion of Asia Minor, near the Pontus 
Euxinus, and he states that this is preferable to that of Syria 
and Judea. Matthiolus has stated, that in his day it was 
brought from Alexandria and Syria by way of Venice. 
Tournefort ( Voyage into the Levant J met with the drug 
at Samos, and stated that the plant shown to him corres- 
ponded to the description of Dioscorides; he says the same 
of the Syrian plant. Belon met with the plant at Candia, 
which he says grew wild on the mountains ; (ed. 1553, 
Travels.) M. Hasselquist, a Dutch naturalist, more recently 
has said that the best comes from Marach, (where resides 
a Pacha,) four days' journey from Aleppo, near the frontiers 
of Armenia, and that he has seen the convolvulus in the 
valleys between Nazareth and Mount Carmel. Finally, 
