Spec. Plant. Willd. ii. 333. Cl. 8. Ord. 1. Octandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Amyrideae, Juss. G. 755. Cal. four-toothed. Pet. four oblong. Stig.

four-cornered. Perry drupaceous. Species 2. Amyris Elemifera. Elemi-tree. ---------6. Amyris Gileadensis. Balsam of Gilead tree. Med. Pot.

3d edit. 603. t. 214. Bruces Abyssinia, vol. v. p. 16. t. 2. 3.

I. Amyris elemifera. Officinal. Elemi, Lond. Elemi; Resina, Dub. Elemi. Syn. Eleme (F. G. I.), Goma de Limon (S.).

The Elemi tree, of the botanical characters of which we know very little, is a native of Carolina and the Brazils. It does not, according to Catesby, rise to a great height: and the trunk is small, and covered with a gray bark. The leaves are opposite, on foot-stalks; ternate, and sometimes pinnate; with stiff, pointed leaflets, of a bright green colour, shining, and downy underneath. The flowers are in terminal corymbs; small, white, with the petals inflex at the tips. The fruit is the size and figure of an olive.

The resin is obtained by making incisions in the bark in dry weather, and is left to dry in the sun as it exudes. It used to be brought from Turkey in long roundish cakes, wrapped in flag-leaves; but the elemi now brought comes in mats and chests, each containing from four to six pounds weight.

Qualities,-True elemi has a fragrant aromatic odour, not unlike that of fennel seeds, but stronger. The taste is very slightly bitter, and warm. The cakes are of a pale yellow colour, semi-transparent, brittle on the outside, soft and tenacious within, and very fusible. Spec. grav. 1.0182, When distilled with water, it affords 1/16th of a thin pale-coloured essential oil, on which its fragrance and softness depend; and the residue is a brittle, inodorous resin. Alcohol dissolves the greater part of elemi; but a white, flaxy, inodorous matter remains, which is almost entirely soluble in water; hence we may consider the constituents of elemi to be gum, and an intimate combination of resin and essential oil. But no true elemi is now to be found in the shops.

Medical properties and uses.-This resin is stimulant, but is very rarely used as an internal remedy, being chiefly employed for forming the mild digestive ointment which bears its name.

Officinal preparations. Unguentum Elemi, D. Unguentum Elemi, L.

2. Amyris gileadensis.1

Officinal. ------, Resini Liquida, Edin. Balsam of Gilead.

Syn. Balsamier de la Mecque (F.), Opobalsamo (I), Balsame (S), Akooy-selarsemoonroome (Arab.), Roghen Bulsan (Pers.).

This species of Amyris is a native of Abyssinia, growing, according to Bruce, among the myrrh-trees behind Azab, all ilong the coast to the Straits of Babelmandel.2 It appears, however, to have been transplanted into Judea 1730 years before Christ; and as it was from Gilead in Judea that the merchants brought its resinous product, in early times, to Egypt, it thence derived its appellation Balasan or Balsam of Gilead.

This tree rises above fourteen feet in height; has a flat top md stunted aspect, with many spreading crooked branches *oing off nearly at right angles: the wood is light, open, and covered with a smooth bluish-white bark. The leaves are hinly scattered, small, composed of one or two pair of opposite leaflets, with an odd one: these are obovate, entire, reined, and of a bright green colour. The flowers are white, ippearing upon the young shoots, three upon one stalk; but :wo generally drop, and one only produces fruit. The calyx s permanent, divided into four expanded sharp teeth: the metals are four, oblong, concave, spreading; the filaments eight, erect, supporting oblong anthers; the germen is superior, ovate, with a thick style, the length of the filaments crowned with a quadrangular stigma. The fruit opens with four valves, and contains a smooth nut.

Theonhrasti et Dioscoridis.

2 Bruce's Abyss. App. p. 16. The whole of Mr. Bruce's account of this tree is highly interesting, and we regard his authority as undoubted.

The ancients held the balsam obtained from this tree in great esteem, but it does not appear that they were well acquainted with the tree itself. To obtain the balsam, the bark is "cut by an axe, when the juice is in its strongest circulation, in July, August, and the beginning of September. It is then received into a small earthen bottle, and every day's produce gathered and poured into a larger, which is kept closely corked." The first that flows, called opobalsamum1, "is of a light yellow colour, apparently turbid." It afterwards becomes clear, fixed, and heavier; and the colour, by degrees, deepens' to a golden yellow. The opobalsamum of the ancients was the green liquor found in the kernel of the fruit; the carpobalsamum, the next in esteem, was made by the expression of the ripe fruit; and xylobalsamum, or the worst kind, by the expression or decoction of the small twigs. The real balsam rarely finds its way into this country, dried Canada balsam being generally substituted for it; but it wants the peculiar odour of the true balsam.

Qualities.-The odour is at first strongly pungent; but the pungency is lost by exposure to the air, and by age; and the balsam gradually acquires the consistence of turpentine. The colour is yellowish exteriorly, and paler in the inside; the taste is acrid, rough, and pungent. When pure, it dissolves easily in water.

Medical properties and uses.-This balsam was esteemed in the earlier ages as a medicine possessed of almost universal virtues; and at the present day the Arabs use it "in all complaints of the stomach and bowels," reckoning it a powerful antiseptic, and preventive of the plague. Its chief use, however, is as a cosmetic by the Turkish ladies. It is never brought genuine to this country: and we know not why the Edinburgh College retain it in the list of Materia Medica.