Under this generic term we have, in the Encyclopedia, given, from the Philosophical Transmutations, a description of the plant or grains which Dr Blane considers as the spikenard of the ancients. It is our duty, in this place, to inform our readers, that Sir William Jones, in the 2d and 4th volumes of the Asiatic Researches, seems to have completely proved that the spikenard of Dioscorides and Galen, or Nardus Indica, was a very different plant from the Andropogon of Dr. Blane, and that it grows in a country far distant from Muckran. The proofs brought by the illustrious president of the Asiatic Society, in support of his own opinion, are too numerous and circumstantial to be introduced into such a work as this. We shall therefore only give one of them; which though, when separated from the root, it loses much of its force, must be allowed, even singly, to have great weight.

The true Indian spikenard is confessedly called by the Arabs Sumbulul Hind; for so they translate the name of it in Dioscorides. Now (says Sir William) I put a fair and plain question severally to three or four Musulman physicians: "What is the Indian name of the plant which the Arabs call Sumbulul Hind?" They all answered, but some with more readiness than others, Jatamansi. After a pretty long interval, I showed them the spikes (as they are called) of Jatamansi, and asked, what was the Arabic name of that Indian drug? They all answered readily, Sumbulul Hind. The same evidence may be obtained in this country by any other European who seeks it; and if among twelve native physicians, versed in Arabian and Indian philology, a single man should, after due consideration, give different answers, I will cheerfully submit to the Roman judgment of non liquet. But the Jatamansi evidently belongs to the natural order which Linnæus calls aggregate; with the following characters:

Calyx, scarce any; margin, hardly discernible. Corolla, one petal; tube somewhat gibbous; border five cleft. Stamen, three Anthers. Pistil, Germ beneath; one Style erect. Seed, solitary, crowned with a papus. Root, fibrous. Leaves, hearted, fourfold; radical leaves petiolated.

It appears therefore (continues the learned author) to be the Protean plant Valerian, a filter of the Mountain and Celtick Nard, and of a species which I should describe in the Linnean style, Valeriana Jatamansi; floribus triandra, folio cordatis quaternis, radicibus petiolatis. The radical leaves, rising from the ground, and enfolding the young stem, are plucked up with a part of the root, and being dried in the sun or by an artificial heat, are sold as a drug, which, from its appearance, has been called spikenard. The Jatamansi is a native of the most remote and hilly parts of India, such as Nepa, Marang Butan, near which Ptolemy fixes the native foil of the Nardus Indica. It grows erect above the surface of the ground, resembling an ear of green wheat; and when recent, it has a faint odour, which is greatly increased by the simple process of drying it.