3
is, according to Birdwood, the same as Bruce's _Angoua_. No. 5 is
distinctly a new species, and affords a highly fragrant resin sold under
the name of _Luban Meti_.

Bombay is now the great mart of frankincense. The quantity exported thence
in 1872-1873 was 25,000 _cwt._, of which nearly one quarter went to China.

Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name "White
Incense" by which Polo speaks of it. And the Arabic name _luban_
apparently refers to milk. The Chinese have so translated, calling
_Ju-siang_ or Milk-perfume.

Polo, we see, says the tree was like a fir tree; and it is remarkable that
a Chinese Pharmacology quoted by Bretschneider says the like, which looks
as if their information came from a common source. And yet I think Polo's
must have been oral. One of the meanings of _Luban_, from the Kamus, is
_Pinus (Freytag)_. This may have to do with the error. Dr. Birdwood, in a
paper _Cassells' Bible Educator_, has given a copy of a remarkable wood
engraving from Thevet's _Cosmographie Universelle_ (1575), representing
the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through his kind intervention
I am able to reproduce here. The text (probably after Polo) speaks of the
tree as resembling a fir, but in the cut the firs are in the background;
the incense trees have some real suggestion of _Boswellia_, and the whole
design has singular spirit and verisimilitude.

Dr. Birdwood thus speaks of the _B. Frereana_, the only species that he
has seen in flower: "As I saw the plant in Playfair's garden at Aden ... in
young leaf and covered with bloom, I was much struck by its elegant
singularity. The long racemes of green star-like flowers, tipped with the
red anthers of the stamens (like aigrettes of little stars of emerald set
with minute rubies), droop gracefully over the clusters of glossy,
glaucous leaves; and every part of the plant (bark, leaves, and flowers)
gives out the most refreshing lemon-like fragrance." (_Birdwood_ in
Linnaean Transactions for 1869, pp. 109 seqq.; _Hanbury and Flueckiger's
Pharmacographia_, pp. 120 seqq.; _Ritter_, xii. 356 seqq.; _Niebuhr,
Desc. de l'Arabie_, I. p. 202, II. pp. 125-132.)

[1] "_Drogue franche_:--Qui a les qualites requises sans melange"
(_Littre_). "_Franc_ ... Vrai, veritable" (_Raynouard_).

The mediaeval _Olibanum_ was probably the Arabic _Al-luban_, but was
popularly interpreted as _Oleum Libani_. Dr. Birdwood saw at the Paris
E