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0191 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 191 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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GALBANUM   365

sent from Bombay to China, and STUART' regards this as entirely probable; but this is merely a supposition unsupported by any tangible data: no modern name is known under which the article might come. The three names given for galbanum in the English-Chinese Standard Dictionary are all wrong: the first, a-yit, refers to asafoetida (see above,

p. 361) ;2 the second, fit, denotes Liquidambar orientalis; and the third, pai sun hian (" white pine aromatic "), relates to Pinus bungeana. The Pen tstao kan mu' has the notice on p `i-ts `i as an appendix to "manna." Li Si-cen, accordingly, did not know the nature of the product. He is content to cite the text of the Yu yan tsa tsu and to define the medical properties of the substance after C`en Ts`ann-k`i of the Tang. Only under the Tang was galbanum known in China.

The trees from which the product is obtained are usually identified with Ferula galbaniflua and F. rubricaulis or erubescens, both natives of Persia. The Syrian product used by the Hebrews and the ancients was apparently derived from a different though kindred species. F. rubricaulis, said by the botanist Buhse to be called in Persian khassuih,4 is diffused all over northern Persia and in the Daëna Mountains in the southern part of the country; it is frequent in the Demawend and on the slopes of the Alwend near Hamadan.' No incisions are made in the plant: the sap flowing out of the lower part of the stalks and from the base of the leaves is simply collected. The gum is amber-yellow, of not disagreeable, strongly aromatic odor, and soon softens between the fingers. Its taste is slightly bitter. Only in the vicinity of Hamadan, where the plant is exuberant, has the collecting of galbanum developed into an industry.

SCHLIMMERE distinguishes two kinds,— a brown and a white-yellowish galbanum. The former (Persian barzed or barije), the product of Ferula galbaniflua, is found near De Gerdon in the mountains Sa-utepolagh between Teheran and Gezwin, in the valleys of Lars (Elburs), Khereghan, and Sawe, where the villagers gather it under the name balubu. The latter kind is the product of Dorema anchezi Boiss., en-

Chinese Materia Medica, p. 181.

z This is the name given for galbanum by F. P. SMITH (Contributions towards the Materia Medica, p. too), but it is mere guesswork.

3 Ch. 33, p. 6.

4 Evidently identical with what WATT (Commercial Products of India, p. 535) writes khassnib, explaining it as a kind of galbanum from Shiraz. LOEW (Aram. Pflanzennamen, p. 163) makes kassnih of this word. The word intended is apparently the kasni mentioned above (p. 361).

b BoRSZCZOw, op. cit., p. 35. 6 Terminologie, p. 295.