the Balsam or Tolu-tree; a genus of plants belonging to the class of deciduous, and order of monogynia. There is only one species; the balsamum.

This tree grows to a considerable height; it sends off numerous large branches, and is covered with rough, thick, greyish bark: the leaves are elliptical or ovate, entire, pointed, alternate, of a light green colour, and stand upon short strong footstalks: the flowers are numerous, and produced in lateral racemi: the calyx is bell-shaped, divided at the brim into five teeth, which are nearly equal, but one is projected to a greater distance than the others: the petals are inserted into the receptacle, and are five in number, of which four are equal, linear, and a little longer than the calyx; the fifth is much the largest, inversely heart-shaped, and its unguis is of the length of the calyx: the filaments are very short, and furnished with long antherae; the germen is oblong: there is no style: the stigma is pointed: the fruit is a round berry.

It grows in Spanish America, in the province of Tolu, behind Carthagena, whence we are supplied with the balsam, which is brought to us in little gourd-shells. This balsam is obtained by making incisions in the bark of the tree, and is collected into spoons, which are made of black wax, from which it is poured into proper vessels.

This balsam is of a reddish yellow colour, transparent, in consistence thick and tenacious; by age it grows to hard and brittle, that it may be rubbed into a powder between the finger and thumb. Its smell is extremely fragrant, somewhat resembling that of lemons; its taste is warm and sweetish, and on being chewed it adheres to the teeth. Thrown into the fire it immediately liquefies, takes flame, and diffuses its agreeable odour. Though it does not dissolve in water, yet if boiled in it for two or three hours in a covered vessel, the water receives its odoriferous smell: water also suffers a similar impregnation from the balsam by distillation. With the affluence of mucilage it unites with water, so as to form a milky solution. It dissolves entirely in spirit of wine, and easily mixes with distilled oils, but less easily with those of the expressed kind. Distilled without addition, it produces not only an empyreumatic oil, of a pale dark colour, but sometimes a small portion of a saline matter, similar to that of the flowers of benzoin.

This balsam possesses the same general virtues with the balsam of Gilead, and that of Peru; it is, however, less heating and stimulating, and may therefore be employed with more safety. It has been chiefly used as a pectoral, and is said to be an efficacious corroborant in gleet and seminal weaknesses. It is directed by the Pharmacopoeia in the syrupus tolatanus, tinctura tolatana, and syrupus bal- famicus. See Pharmacy Index.