Volume 2

Useful knowledge: or a familiar account of the various productions of nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal, which are chiefly employed for the use of man. Illustrated with numerous figures, and intended as a work both of instruction and reference / By William Bingley.

  • Bingley, William, 1774-1823.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Useful knowledge: or a familiar account of the various productions of nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal, which are chiefly employed for the use of man. Illustrated with numerous figures, and intended as a work both of instruction and reference / By William Bingley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    155/322 (page 131)
    STORAX.—LOG-WOOD. lOL substance thus formed is the floors of 'benzoin of the shops, or Benzoic acid, as it is termed by chemists. 141 STORAX is a fragrant, concrete, or solid balsam, that is obtained from a t/ee (Styrax officinalis) zclnch grows m the Levant, and in some parts oj Italy. r This tree grows to the height of twenty feet and WWfytftK much branched, and has broad, alternate, oval leaves, Wgf pointed, smooth above, and downy beneath. The flowers are mae, white, in clusters on short footstalks, and terminate the branches. The best storax is obtained from Asiatic Turkey,. in small transparent masses, of pale red or yellowish colour, and generally abounding in whitish tears, le- sembling those of benzoin. The drug, however, which is commonly sold in the shops as storax, consists of large, light pieces, very impure, from the saw-dust with which it is mixed. The mode of obtaining this balsam is similar to that employed for benzoin (140): incisions are made in the trees, and, on its oozing from the wound, it is scraped off, and collected together to be packed for sale. It was formerly customary to enclose it in reeds. Storax is one of the most fragrant of the balsams, and is much used in some countries in perfumes, and for fumigation. It is also compounded in various ways with other substances, for medicinal use. 142. LOG WOOD is a dark red wood, chiefly used in dyeing; and imported from Honduras, and some of the islands of the West Indies. The log-wood tree (Hsematoxylon campecluanum, Fig. 43) is from sixteen to twenty four feet high, and, both in the trunk and branches, is extremely crooked. The branches are spinous, and the leaves winged, with, in general, four or five pair of leaflets, which are somewhat heart-shaped. The flowers are of a reddish yellow colour, small, and numerous. The district of Honduras in North America has long been celebrated for the production of log-wood, which grows wild chiefly in forests where the soil is moist, or near the banks of rivers and lakes. The cutting of it