POGOSTEMON PATCHOULI. Pella.
Pogostemon interruedius, Botta. Pachouli, Patchy pat, ItEso. I Kottani, :VALE.AL, TAY.
A labiate plant used as an ingredient to mix with tobacco for smoking, also for scenting women's hair. It is found in every bazar through out India. It grows in Sylhet, Penang, and the Malay Peniesula, and seems to grow abundantly•in a perfectly wild slate at Penang. M. de Ilugel found it growing wild near Canton. The odour of the dried plant is strong and peculiar, and to some persons not agreeable ; the dried tops im ported into England are a foot or more in length. In Europe it is principally used for perfumery purposes, it being a favourite with the French, who import it largely from Bourbon. They were led to use it because a few years before real Indian shawls bore an extravagant price, and purchasers distinguished them by the odour of patchouli, with which they were perfumed ; and on discover ing this secret, the French manufacturers got into the way of importing the'plant to perfume articles of their own make, and thus palm off home-spun shawls for real Indian. The Arabs use and ex port it more than any other nation. Their annual pilgrim ships take up an immense quantity of the leaf ; they use it principally for stuffing mattresses and pillows, and assert that it is very efficacious in preventing contagion and prolonging life. The
characteristic smell of Chinese and Indian ink is owing to an admixture of this plant on its manu facture. Some people put the dry leaves in a muslin bag, and thus use it as is done with lavender, for scenting drawers in which linen is kept ; and this is the best way to use it, as its odour, like musk, is most agreeable when very I dilute. It requires no sort of preparation, being simply gathered and dried in the sun ; too much drying, however, is hurtful, inasmuch as it renders the leaf liable to crumble to dust in packing and stowing on board. By distillation it yields a volatile oil, on which the odour and remarkable properties depend. This oil is in common use in India for imparting the peculiar fragrance to clothes. Among the richer classes of natives in Penang it sold at the rate of a dollar and a quarter to a dollar and a half per pikul. In Bengal, some which was imported from Penang several years previous sold at 11 rupees 8 annas per maund. Later investments have sold at a much lower rate.