BALSAMODE'NDRON, a genus of oriental trees belonging to the natural order Amyridacar, and remarkable for their powerful balsamic juice. They have small green Raillery dicecions flowers, a minute 4-toothed persistent calyx, four narrow inflected petals, eight stamens inserted below an annular disk, from which eight little excrescences arise, alternating with the stamens, and n small oval drupe with four sutures, and either one nr two cells, in each of which is lodged a single aced. The leaves are pinnated, with one or two pairs of leaflets, and An odd one.
13. Opotalsam UM the Balessan of Bruce, has a trunk from six to eight feet high, furnished with a number of slender branches ending in a sharp spine. The leaves consist of from five to seven sessile, °borate, entire, and shining leaflets, within which are placed the small flowers, which grow in pairs on short slender stalks, and are succeeded by small oval plums. From this is distinguished the 13. supposed to be the /3aAeduor SirSpoy of Theophrastus, which is described as n middle-sized tree, with the leaflets growing in threes, and the flowers singly. But it is probable that, as these balsam trees are found in the same places, and produce the same substance, they aro in fact nothing but varieties of the same species. They both produce three different substances : I, Balm of Mecca, or Balm of Gilead, or Opobalsanium ; 2, Xylobalsamum ; and 3, Carpobalsamum ; the first obtained from the trunk of the balsam-trees by simple inci sion ; the second by boiling the branches and skimming off the resin as it rises to the surface of the water ; and the third by simple pressure of the fruit. They are no longer met with, even in gardens, about Gilead in Palestine.
B. Myrrha is a small 'scrubby tree found in Arabia Felix, near Gison, scattered among species of Acacia, Euphorbia, and Moringa.
Both its wood and bark have a strong and remarkable odour. The branches are stiff, short, and spiny ; the leaves composed of three obovate unequal leaflets, with distinct crenatures, and the fruit a narrow,- oval, furrowed plum, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx.
B. Katof has fewer spines, and downy and ..more distinctly serrated leaves. Its wood, which is red and resinous, is a common article of sale in Egypt.
Whatever may be the product of tho last species, which Forskal states to produce the myrrh of commerce, it is now certain that this substance is yielded by Balaamodendron Myrrha, which Ehrenberg found on the fron tiers of Nubia and Arabia, bearing a substance identical with the myrrh of the shops. It is therefore no longer to be doubted that the suggestion of Bruce, that it is the produce of a kind of Mimosa—a most improbable circum stance, by the way—originated in some incorrect observation.
B. Zeylanicum is mentioned as a fifth species, producing oriental Elemi, which is very different from theAmeri can kind ; but of this too little is known to enable us to do more than advert to its existence. • Myrrh, a natural gum-resin, the source of which was long doubtful, was observed by Ehrenberg to exude from the bark of the above mentioned species of balm, much in the same way as gum tragacanth exudes froin the Astragalus rents. It is at first soft, oily, and of a yellowish-white colour, then acquires the consistence of butter, and by exposure to tho air becomes harder, and changes to a reddish hue. As met with in commerce it is of two kinds, that which is called Myrrh in Tears, and that called Myrrh in Sorts.
Dr. Vou 3Iartius mentions a White Myrrh, which has a very bitter taste like colocynth, and an external appearance like ammoniacum ; it is probably ammoniacum treated with tincture of coloeynth. Another false myrrh may be distinguished by its transparency and less bitter taste. [IIALsAms ; Mvitan, in ARTS AND SC. Div.]