Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Some Information respecting the Lignum Rhodium of Pocock's Travels, in a Letter to Alexander MacLeay, Esq. F.R.S. Sec. L.S.
TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
LINNEAN SOCIETY.
I. Some Information respecting the Lignum Rhodium of Pococke's Travels, in a Letter to Alexander Macleay, Esq. F.R.S.Sec. L.S. By Sir James Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S. Pr.L.S., &c.
Read February 21, 1815.
Dear Sir,
A point of botanical history has just been cleared up by my examinations of the manuscripts and dried specimens of the late Dr. J. Sibthorp, which, not being admissible into the Flora Græca, I think proper to rescue from oblivion, by requesting you to lay it before the Linnean Society.
Pococke, in his well-known "Description of the East," vol. ii. part 1. p. 230, speaking of Cyprus, has the following passage:
"Most of the trees in the island are evergreen; but it is most famous for the tree called by the natives Xylon Effendi, the Wood of our Lord, and by naturalists Lignum Cyprinum and Lignum Rhodium, because it grows in these two islands. It is called also the Rose Wood, by reason of its smell. Some say it is in other parts of the Levant, and also in the isle of Martinico. It grows like the Platanus or Plane-tree, and bears a seed or mast like that, only the leaf and fruit are rather smaller. The botanists call it the Oriental Plane-tree. The leaves being rubbed have a fine balsamic smell, with an orange flavour. It produces an excellent white turpentine; especially when any incisions are made in the bark. I suppose it is from this that they extract a very fine perfumed oil, which, they say, as well as the wood, has the virtue of fortifying the heart and brain. The common people here cut off the bark and wood together, toast it in the fire, and suck it, which they esteem a specific remedy in a fever, and seem to think that it has a miraculous operation.”
So far Dr. Pococke, who in the 2d part of the same vol. p. 188, mentions this tree again, and, in plate 89, gives a tolerable, but not precisely botanical figure of it. This plate is cited by Willdenow, Sp. Pl. vol. 4. 475, as a representation of the Liquidambar imberbe, Ait. Hort. Kew, ed. 1. vol. 3. 365. That author perceiving it to be no Platanus, but rather a Liquidambar, reasonably enough concluded it to represent the Oriental, rather than the American, species of that genus. The figure, though drawn and engraved by Ehret, is not sufficiently accurate to determine so nice a point. As it does not show the hairiness about the veins of the leaves, which distinguishes the occidental Liquidambar from the oriental, Willdenow is the more excusable; though the outline of the foliage agrees best with the former.
Dr. Sibthorp, in his visit to Cyprus, was anxious to ascertain the tree mentioned by Pococke, and the result of his inquiry cannot be better related than in the words of his manuscript journal.
"April 19, 1785, at eight in the morning we left Upreva, and, passing through the vales below, gradually ascended the mountains of Antiphoniti. At noon we arrived at the convent, most romantically situated among the mountains, with a view of the sea, and a distant sight of the mountains of Caramania. I was 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 isle of Rhodes being its native country. We find nothing among them indicative of the above Liquidambar, or any similar tree. It is evident that Pococke had but a superficial knowledge of the historical, and still less of the botanical, part of the subject. The only point I have had in view, after the example of Dr. Sibthorp, was to ascertain Pococke's plant. Specimens preserved in the herbarium of my deceased friend, and a pencil sketch by Mr. Bauer, show this to be, without any doubt, what he determined it, the Liquidambar Styraciflua of Linnæus, and not, as Willdenow presumed, the imberbe of Aiton. This last was brought from the Levant, Duhamel says from Caria, by Peysonel to the Paris garden, from whence I have an authentic specimen. Miller obtained seeds, by which the L. imberbe was introduced into our gardens, and he describes it well. Nothing can be more distinct as a species; but it was not well ascertained when Dr. Sibthorp began his travels, which will account for his adverting to the American Liquidambar only.
There still remains great difficulty in accounting for the introduction of this tree into Cyprus, and for its becoming so famous there. The plant is not known to have been cultivated in England, much before the end of the seventeenth century, scarcely fifty years before Pococke found it, apparently long established in Cyprus. The Venetians were owners of this island from the year 1480 to 1570; so that if they, as Dr. Sibthorp guesses, introduced this tree, it must have been among the earlier botanical importations from the new-discovered continent. But we can find no traces of the Liquidambar tree having, any where, excited the particular attention of the Venetians, or any other Italians, either for medical, œconomical, or religious purposes; nor does it occur in their gardens, or even their botanical catalogues, as far as I can trace. Pococke's vague mention of the "isle of Martinico" might induce a suspicion of its having been obtained from thence; but no Europæans were settled in that island previous to the year 1635, nor do we know that the tree, being a native of North America, would grow in so hot a climate.
How the Liquidambar Styraciflua travelled to Cyprus, must therefore remain unexplained; for we have not even a legend to help us, like that of the staff of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury. That so great a novelty should have acquired considerable reputation in the garden of a Cyprian convent, so as to have even supernatural properties attributed to it, may not so much excite our wonder. Its celebrity indeed appears to have declined between the periods of Dr. Pococke's visit and Dr. Sibthorp's, but the tree itself still flourished. Dr. Sibthorp, like his predecessor, found it forming seed; yet it does not appear to have scattered its progeny over the neighbourhood, as, in so fine a climate, it might have been expected to have done, though I have never heard of its bringing any seed to perfection in England, where it rarely even blossoms.
I remain, &c.