Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/19

Rh come here, on the authority of Pococke, to see the Lignum Rhodium. This the Greeks call Xylon Effendi. The Eugumenos of the convent, a very old man, offered himself as my conductor; and leading me a few paces below the convent, into a garden, now covered with rubbish, he pointed out a tree, which upon examination I found to be Liquidambar Styraciflua. The trunk of it was much hacked. Different bits of it had been carried off by the curious or superstitious, as an ornament to their cabinets or churches. This was probably the same tree that Pococke had seen. To ascertain the Lignum Rhodium has been much wished by the naturalists. An American tree, growing in the swamps of Virginia, seems to have little claim to be considered as the tree which should produce it. The name of Xylon Effendi, and the traditions of the convent, testify the reputation in which this tree has long been held in the island. It was probably originally introduced by the Venetians during their possession of Cyprus. I could not discover, either from observation or inquiry, that it was to be found in any other part of the island; nor do I recollect that the Liquidambar Styraciflua has been mentioned, by any botanist, as an oriental tree. Whether the Lignum Rhodium of the shops is the wood of this tree or not, I am doubtful. The first Aspalathus of Dioscorides, I think, is certainly the Lignum Rhodium of the ancients."

Dr. Sibthorp then proceeds to mention two species of Spartium, one of which he suspects to be the first, and the other the second, Aspalathus of Dioscorides; but the want of descriptions, and of marked specimens, renders it impossible to distinguish what he meant. I do not presume to reconcile the discordant accounts, which may be found in writers on the Materia Medica, respecting the Lignum Rhodium; nor are these writers even agreed whether its name originated from the rose-like scent of the wood, or from the