STYRAX OFFICINALIS is the source of the officinal storax, although an article is occasionally vended under this name, which is obtained from the Liquidambar st yracijlaa, and perhaps other species of Lig/tide/der, yet in the London Pliarniacopmia, it is said to be the produce of an unknown plant. Of genuine storax there are several varieties, and of those known to the ancients many are now altogether unascertainable, while of those mentioned by even recent writers several are very rare, and not of commercial importance. The tree grows in Greece and Asia Minor. Asiatic Turkey supplies whatever is met with in commerce. It is procured by incisions in the bark, or perhaps from the. punctures of insects. What flows from these openings is a liquid resinous substance, which concretes into small tears, about the size of peas ; these, aggregated into masses, constitute the styrax altms, which is of extreme rarity. Another form is that called antyg daluides, also of great rarity and extravagant price. it is sometimes termed calamita vcra. The commercial article is of various degrees of purity and excellence. One kind is called storax calamita rayon's, or Seas storaeina. This always contains more or less sawdust, mixed with variable quantities of resin. It is generally in large round cakes, of a brown colour, verging to red or black, with fragrant odour, brittle, and friable, hut softens in the mouth, and has a bitter taste. It burns
with a light flame. It is considered to be an artificial compound, prepared chiefly in Venice and Trieste. Liquid stoma contains— volatile oil (styrol), a trace only ; resin, both soft and hard, from 32 to 53 per cent. in different specimens; benzoic acid, from 1 to 2 per cent. ; gum, 7 to 14 ; woody fibre, 20 to 27; ammonia, an inappreciable quantity ; cinuamic acid aud styracin.
Storax is stimulating in a degree dependent on its purity. For medical purposes it is directed to be purified by solution in alcohol, straining, aud afterwards distilling off the spirit. The residuum is then used a few preparations, such as tinctures and pills. It formerly entered into a multitude of compounds, but it might be altogether supplanted by benzoin. It is much used to form pastilles, and for fumigations. The bark is called cortex thymiamatis, or cortex thuris, from which, by boiling, liquid storax is procured, as well as from the Liquidambar. There is a atoms from Bogota, but its source is unknown, though Geiger ascribes it to a styrax.