in botany: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the triandra class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 4th order, Gramina. There is no calyx; the corolla is bilved.

This plant was highly valued by the ancients, both as an article of luxury and medicine. The *unguentum nardinum* was used at baths and feasts as a favourite perfume. Its value is evident from that passage of scripture, where our Saviour's head was anointed with a box of it, with which Judas found fault. From a passage in Horace it appears that this ointment was so valuable among the Romans, that as much as could be contained in a small box of precious stone was considered as a sort of equivalent for a large vessel of wine, and a proper quota for a guest to contribute at an entertainment, according to the ancient custom:

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*Nardo vina merere.*

*Nardi parvus onyx elicit cadum.*

The plant had a great character among the ancients as a medicine, both internally taken and externally applied. It has a place in the list of all antidotes from those of Hippocrates (given on the authority of Mephisto and Nicholas Alexandrinus) to the officinals which have kept their ground till lately, under the names of *Mithridate* and *Venice treacle*. Galen and Alexander Trallian recommend it in the dropsy and gravel; Celsus and Galen in pains of the stomach and bowels, both internally given and externally applied. Galen prescribed the oleum nardinum to the emperor Marcus Aurelius when afflicted with a cholera morbus. It was externally applied to the stomach on wool; and the success was so great, that he ever afterwards enjoyed the highest confidence of that emperor. In a work attributed to Galen, also, it is mentioned that a medicine composed of this and some other aromatics was found useful in long protracted fevers; and the natives of India at present consider it as a very efficacious remedy in fevers. Its sensible qualities, indeed, promise it to be of considerable efficacy in some cases, as it has a pungency of taste superior to contrayerva, and little inferior to terpentaria.

But though the name of this plant, with the uses and virtues of it, has long been familiar in the writings of botanists and physicians, the genus and species of the plant have only been ascertained very lately. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1790, Dr. Blane gives an account of it from a letter sent him by his brother from Lucknow, dated in December 1786.—According to this gentleman's relation, being one day on a hunting party with the nabob visier, after crossing the river Rapti, about 20 miles from the foot of the northern mountains, he was surprised to find the air perfumed with an aromatic smell, which, as he was told, proceeded from the roots of the grass that were bruised or torn out of the ground by the nabob's elephants and horses. The country was wild, uncultivated, and entirely covered with this kind of grass, which grew in large tufts close to each other, and from three to four feet long. As none of it was in flower, it being then the winter season, and the grass having besides been burnt down by order of the nabob, our author caused some of the roots to be dug up, in order to plant it in his garden at Lucknow.—Here it prospered exceedingly; and shot up spikes to the height of six feet. A specimen was sent to Sir Joseph Banks, who found it to belong to the genus of andropogon, different from any species hitherto described by botanists. "There is great reason, however (says Dr Blanc), to think that it is the true nardus Indica of the ancients; for, 1. The circumstance of its discovery corresponds in a striking manner with an occurrence related by Arrian in his History of Alexander's Expedition into India. During the march of that hero through the deserts of Gedrosia, the air was perfumed by the spikenard, which was trampled under foot by the army; and the Phoenicians, who accompanied them, collected great quantities of it, as well as of myrrh, to carry them into their own country to make merchandise of them. This last circumstance seems further to ascertain it to have been the true nardus; for the Phoenicians, who even in war appear to have retained their true genius for commerce, could no doubt distinguish the proper quality of this commodity. I am informed by major Rennel, that Gedroa answers to the modern Mackran, or Kedge-mackran, a maritime province of Persia, situated between Kermou (the ancient Carmania), and the river Indus, being of course the frontier province of Persia towards India; and that it appears from Arrian's account, and from a Turkish map of Persia, that this desert lies in the middle tract of country between the river Indus and the Persian gulf, and within a few days' march of the Arabian or Erythraean sea. By this the ancients meant the northern part of the Ethiopic ocean, which washes the southern coasts of Arabia and Persia; not what we now call the Red Sea, as its name would seem to imply, for this by the ancients was called the Arabian Gulf. 2. Though the accounts of the ancients concerning this plant are very defective, it is plain that it was of the natural order of graminae; for the term arista, so often applied to it, was appropriated by them to the fructification of grains and grasses, and seems to be a word of Greek original, to denote the most excellent portion of those plants, which are the most useful in the vegetable creation for the sustenance of animal life; and nature has also kindly made them the most abundant in all parts of the habitable earth. Galen says, that though there are various sorts of nardus, the term ναρδος σκυλος, or spikenard, should not be applied to any but the nardus Indica. It would appear that the nardus Celtica was a plant of a quite different habit, and is supposed to have been a species of valeriana.

"The description of the Nardus Indica by Pliny does not indeed correspond with the appearance of our specimen; for he says it is frutex radice pingui et crassa, whereas ours has small fibrous roots. But as Italy is very remote from the native country of this plant, it is reasonable to suppose that others more easily procurable used to be substituted for it; and the same author says, that there were nine different plants by which it could be imitated and adulterated. There is a Nardus Africana mentioned by Horace; and Dioscorides mentions the Nardus Syriaca as a species different from the India, which certainly was brought from some of the remote parts of India; for both Dioscorides and Galen, by way of fixing more particularly the country from whence it came, call it the Nardus Gangites. 3. Garcia ab Horto, a Portuguese who resided many years at Goa in the 16th century, has given a figure of the roots, or rather of the lower parts of the stalks, which corresponds with our specimen; and he says that there is but one species of nardus known in India, either for the consumption of the natives, or for exportation to Persia and Arabia. 4. The sensible qualities of this are superior to what commonly passes for it in the shops, being possessed both of more fragrance and pungency, which seems to account for the preference given to it by the ancients.

"There is a question, concerning which Matthiolus, the commentator of Dioscorides, bestows a good deal of argument, viz. whether the roots or stalks were the parts esteemed for use, the testimony of the ancients themselves on this head being ambiguous. The roots of this specimen are very small, and possess sensible qualities inferior to the rest of the plant; yet it is mentioned in the account above recited, that the virtues reside principally in the hulky roots. It is evident, that by the hulky roots must here be meant the lower parts of the stalks and leaves, where they unite to the roots; and it is probably a slight ambiguity of this kind that has given occasion to the ambiguity that occurs in the ancient accounts."

The sensible qualities of this plant do not depend upon an essential oil, but on some fixed principle like those of cardamoms or ginger. Dr Blanc tried to extract its virtues with boiling water, maceration in wine or proof spirits; but it yielded them sparingly and with difficulty to any of these menstrua. The Indians gave an infusion of it in hot water, with a small quantity of black pepper as a febrifuge.