the STORAX-TREE, in botany: A genus of plants belonging to the class of decandra, and to the order of monogynia; and in the natural system ranging under the 18th order, bicornae. Linnaeus only mentions one species of this genus, the styrax officinale; but Aiton, in his Hortus Kewensis, has added two more; namely, the grande folium and levigatum; and we believe a fourth may now be added, the styrax benzoin.

The officinale usually rises above twenty feet in height; it sends off many strong branches, which are covered with a roughish bark of a grey colour: the leaves are broad, elliptical, entire, somewhat pointed, on the upper surface smooth, and of a light green colour, on the under surface covered with a whitish down; they are placed alternately, and stand upon short footstalks: the flowers are large, white, and disposed in clusters upon short peduncles, which terminate the branches: the corolla is monopetalous, funnel-shaped, and divided at the limb into five lance-shaped segments: the filaments are ten, placed in a regular circle, and seem to adhere towards the base: the anthers are erect and oblong: the germen is oval, and supports a slender style, with a simple stigma: the fruit is a pulpy pericarpium, which contains one or two nuts of an oval compressed figure.

The resinous drug called storax issues in a fluid state from incisions made in the trunk or branches of the tree. Two sorts of this resin have been commonly distinguished in the shops. 1. Storax in the tear: is scarcely, if ever, found in separate tears, but in masses, sometimes composed of whitish and pale reddish brown tears, and sometimes of an uniform reddish yellow or brownish appearance; unctuous and soft like wax, and free from visible impurities. This is supposed to be the sort which the ancients received from Pamphylia in reeds or canes, and which was thence named calamita.

2. Common storax: in large masses, considerably lighter and less compact than the former, and having a large admixture of woody matter like saw-dust. This appears to be the kind intended by the London college, as they direct their storax calamita to be purified, for medicinal use, by softening it with boiling water, and pressing it out from the feces betwixt warm iron plates; a process which the first sort does not stand in need of. And indeed there is rarely any other than this impure storax to be met with in the shops.

Storax, with some of the ancients, was a familiar remedy as a solvent, and particularly used in catarrhal complaints, coughs, asthma, menstrual obstructions, &c. and from its affinity to the balsams it was also prescribed in ulcerations of the lungs, and other states of pulmonary consumption.

And our pharmacopoeias formerly directed the pilulae styrae; but this odoriferous drug has now no place in any of the official compounds; and though a medicine which might seem to promise some efficacy in nervous debilities, yet by modern practitioners it is almost totally disregarded.

The styrax benzoin is described by Dr Dryander in the Philosophical Transactions for 1787, p. 308, &c. It has been characterized by oblong acuminate leaves, which are downy underneath, and nearly of the length of the racemi. The botanical character of this tree was mistaken by modern botanists till Dr Dryander ascertained it to be a styrax. Benzoin was long supposed to be the produce of a species of laurus. Linnaeus detected this error: but he committed another; for he tells us, that it is furnished by a shrub which, in the country where it grows, is called croton benzoin; and afterwards, in his Supplementum Plantarum, describes the same plant a second time, under the name of terminalia benzoin.

This tree, which is a native of Sumatra, is deemed in six years of sufficient age for affording the benzoin, or when its trunk acquires about seven or eight inches in diameter; the bark is then cut through longitudinally, or somewhat obliquely, at the origin of the principal lower branches, from which the drug exudes in a liquid state, and by exposure to the sun and air soon concretes, when it is scraped off from the bark with a knife or chisel. The quantity of benzoin which one tree affords never exceeds three pounds, nor are the trees found to sustain the effects of these annual incisions longer than ten or twelve years. The benzoin which issues first from the wounded bark is the purest, being soft, extremely fragrant, and very white; that which is left afterwards is of a brownish colour, very hard, and mixed with various impurities, which it acquires during its long continuance upon the trees. Eschscholtz distinguishes benzoin into three kinds, viz. camayan poeti, or white benjamin, which, upon being melted in a bladder by the heat of the fun, appears marked with red streaks or veins. Camayan bamatta is less white than the former, and often spotted with white circles, called eyes, from the number of which its goodness is estimated: it likewise melts by the heat of the fun. Camayan iiam, or black benjamin, which requires to be melted in hot water for its preservation in bladders. In Arabia, Persia, and other parts of the East, the coarser kinds of benjamin are consumed for fumigating and perfuming the temples, and for destroying insects.

The benzoin which we find here in the shops is in large brittle masses, composed partly of white, partly of yellowish or light brown, and often also of darker coloured pieces: that which is clearest, and contains the most white matter, called by authors benzoe amygdaloides, is accounted the best. This resin has very little taste, impressing on the palate only a slight sweetness; its smell, especially when rubbed or heated, is extremely fragrant and agreeable. It totally dissolves in rectified spirit, (the impurities excepted, which are generally in a very small quantity), into a deep yellowish red liquor, and in this state discovers a degree of warmth and pungency, as well as sweetness. It imparts, by digestion, to water also a considerable share of its fragrance, and a slight pungency: the filtered liquor, gently exhaled, leaves not a resinous or mucilaginous extract, but a crystalline matter, seemingly of a saline nature, amounting to one-eighth or one eighth of the weight of the benzoin. Exposed to the fire in proper vessels, it yields a quantity of a white saline concrete, called flores benzoes, of an acidulous taste and grateful odour, soluble in rectified spirit, and in water by the assistance of heat. The principal use of this fragrant resin is in perfumes, and as a cosmetic; for which last purpose, a solution of it in spirit of wine is mixed with so much water as is sufficient to render it milky, as twenty times its quantity or more. It promises, however, to be applicable to other uses, and to approach in virtue, as in fragrance, to storax and balsam of Tolu. It is said to be of great service in disorders of the breast, for resolving obstructions of the pulmonary vessels, and promoting expectoration: in which intentions the flowers are sometimes given, from three or four grains to fifteen. The white powder, precipitated by water from solutions of the benzoin in spirit, has been employed by some as similar and superior to the flowers, but appears to be little other than the pure benzoin in substance: it is not the saline, but the resinous matter of the benzoin, that is most disposed to be precipitated from spirit by water. The flowers, snuffed up the nose, are said to be a powerful er-

rhine.

Liquid florax is a resinous juice obtained from a tree called by Linnæus liquidambar floraciflua, a native of Virginia and Mexico, and lately naturalized in this country. The juice called liquidambar is said to exude from incisions made in the trunk of this tree, and the liquid florax to be obtained by boiling the bark or branches in water. Two sorts of liquid florax are distinguished by authors: one, the purer part of the resinous matter that rises to the surface in boiling, separated by a strainer, of the consistence of honey, tenacious like turpentine, of a reddish or ash brown colour, moderately transparent, of an acid unctuous taste, and a fragrant smell, faintly resembling that of the solid florax, but somewhat disagreeable; the other, the more impure part, which remains on the strainer, is not transparent, in smell and taste is much weaker, and contains a considerable proportion of the substance of the bark. What is most commonly met with under this name in the shops is of a weak smell and a grey colour, and is supposed to be an artificial composition.

Liquid florax has been employed chiefly in external applications. Among us, it is at present almost wholly in disuse.