Facsimile of an
engraving in Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle (1575), reproduced from
the Bible Educator.[3]]
But neither Dr. Carter's paper and specimens, nor the previous looser
notices of the naval officers, seemed to attract any attention, and men of
no small repute went on repeating in their manuals the old story about
Indian olibanum. Dr. G. Birdwood however, at Bombay, in the years
following 1859, took up the subject with great zeal and intelligence,
procuring numerous specimens of the Sumali trees and products; and his
monograph of the genus Boswellia in the Linnaean Transactions (read
April 1869), to which this note is very greatly indebted, is a most
interesting paper, and may be looked on, I believe, as embodying the most
correct knowledge as yet attainable. The species as ranked in his table
are the following:
[Illustration: Boswellia Frereana (Birdw.).
1. Boswellia Carterii (Birdw.), including the Arabian tree of
Dhafar, and the larger variety called Mohr Madau by the Sumalis.
2. B. Bhau-dajiana (Birdw.), Mohr A'd of the Sumalis.
3. B. papyrifera (Richard). Abyssinian species.
4. B. thurifera (Colebr.), see p. 396 supra.
5. B. Frereana (Birdw.), Yegar of the Sumalis - named after
Mr. William Frere, Member of Council at Bombay. No. 2 was named from Bhau
Daji, a very eminent Hindu scholar and physician at Bombay (Birdw.).]
No. 1 produces the Arabian olibanum, and Nos. 1 and 2 together the bulk of
the olibanum exported from the Sumali coast under the name Luban-Shehri.
Both are said to give an inferior kind besides, called L. Bedawi.
