XXXIII.

BOTANICAL OBSERVATIONS

ON THE SPIKENARD OF THE ANTIENTS &

intended as a Supplement to the late

SIR WILLIAM JONES's Papers on that Plant.

BY WILLIAM ROXBURGH. M. D.

VALERIANA JATAMANSI.

GENERIC CHARACTER.

LOWERS triandrous, leaves entire, four-fold, the inner radical pair petioled, and cordate; the rest smaller, sessile, and sub-lanceolate; seeds crowned with a pappus.

V. JATAMANSI of Sir William Jones. See Asiatic Researches, vol. 2, page 405, 417, and page 118

of this volume.

NOVEMBER 6th, 1794. I received from the Honourable C. A. Bruce, Commissioner at Coos-Beyhar, two small baskets with plants of this valuable drug. He writes to me on the 27th September (so long had the plants been on the road) that he had, the day before, received them from the Deb Rajah of Bootan; and further says, that the Booteahs know the plant by two names, viz. Jatamansi and Pampe, or Paumpe.

I NEED scarce attempt to give any further history of this famous odoriferous plant than what is merely botanical; and that with a view to help to illustrate the learned dissertations thereon, by the late Sir William Jones, in the 2d and 4th volumes of these Researches; and chiefly by pointing out the part of the plant known by the name Indian Nard, or Spikenard: a question on which Matheolus, the commentator of Dioscorides, bestows a good deal of argument; viz. Whether the roots or stalks were the parts esteemed for use? the testimony of the antients themselves on this head being ambiguous. It is therefore necessary for those who wish for a more particular account of it, to be acquainted with what that gentleman has published on the subject.

THE plants now received, are growing in two small baskets of earth; in each basket there appears above the earth between thirty and forty hairy spike-like bodies, but more justly compared to the tails of Ermines, or small Weasels *; from the apex of each, or at least of the greatest part of them, there is a smooth lanceolate, or lanceolate-oblong, three or five-nerved, short-petioled, acute or obtuse, slightly serrulate leaf or two shooting forth. Fig. 1. represents one of them in the above state; and on gently removing the fibres or hairs which surround the short petiols of these

The term spica, or spike, is not so ill applied to this substance as may be imagined; several of the Indian grasses, well known to me, have spikes almost exactly resembling a single straight piece of nardus; and when those hairs (or flexible arista like bristles) are removed, Pliny's words, "frutexradice pingui et crassa," are by no means inapplicable. See Fig. 2, from a to b.

leaves,

leaves, I find it consists of numerous sheaths, of which one, two, or three of the upper or interior ones are entire, and have their fibres connected by a lightbrown coloured membranous substance, as at b; but in the lower exterior sheaths, where this connecting membrane is decayed, the more durable hair-like fibres remain distinct, giving to the whole the appearance of an Ermine's tail: this part, as well as the root, are evidently perennial *. The root itself (beginning at the surface of the earth where the fibrous envelope ends) is from three to twelve inches long, covered with a pretty thick light-brown coloured bark: from the main root, which is sometimes divided, there issues several smaller fibres. Fig. 2, is another plant with a long root; here the hair-like sheaths, beginning at a, are separated from this, the perennial part of the stem, and turned to the right side; at the apex is seen the young shoot, marked 6, which is not so far advanced as at Fig. 1; ccc show the remains of last

*The above described perennial hairy portion of the plant, is clearly the Indian spikenard of our shops; but whether the nardus of the antients or not, I leave to better judges to determine; however, I believe few will doubt it after having read Sir William Jones's Dissertations thereon, and compared what he says with the accompanying drawings of the perennial hairy part of the stem of this plant, which are taken from the living plants immediately under my own eyes: the drawing of the herbaceous, or upper part of the plant, is out of the question in determining this point, and only refers to the place the plant bears in our Botanical books. While writing the above, I desired an Hindu servant to go and buy me from their apothecaries shops a little Jatamansi. Without saying more or less, he immediately went and brought me several pieces of the very identical drug I have been describing : a drawing of one of the pieces is represented at Fig. 4, and agrees not only with those I have taken from the living plants, but also exceedingly well with Garcias ab Orta's figure of the nardus indica, which is to be found at page 129 of the fourth edition of Clusius's Latin translations of his History of Indian Drugs, pub lished in 1693.

year's

year's annual stem. When the young shoot is a little further advanced than in Fig. 2, and not so far as in Fig. 1, they resemble the young convolute shoots of monocotyledonus plants, June 1795. The whole of the abovementioned plants have perished, without producing flowers, notwithstanding every care that could possibly be taken of them. The principal figure in the drawing, marked Fig. 3, and the following description, as well as the above definition, are therefore chiefly extracted from the engraving and description in the second volume of these Researches, and from the information communicated to me by Mr. Burt, the gentleman who had charge of the plants that flowered at Gaya, and who gave Sir William Jones the drawing and description thereof.

Description of the Plant.

Root, it is already described above.

Stem, lower part perennial, involved in fibrous fheaths, &c. as above described; the upper part herbaceous suberect, simple, from six to twelve inches long. Leaves four-fold, the lowermost pair of the four radical are opposite, sessile, oblong, forming, as it were, a two-valved spathe; the other pair are also opposite petioled, cordate, margins waved and pointed; those of the stem sessile and lanceolate; all are smooth on both sides.

Corymb terminal, first division trichotomous.

Bracts awled.

Calyx scarce any.

Corol