Note 495 — BOOK XII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TREES.

It is probable that the nard of the ancients, from which they extracted the famous nard-oil, was not the same plant which we know as the Indian nard, or Andropogon nardus of Linnæus. Indeed, it has been pretty conclusively established by Sir William Jones, in his “Asiatic Researches,” that the Valeriana Jatamansi is the plant from which they obtained the oil. Among the Hindoos, it is known as djatâmansi, and by the Arabs under the name of sombul, or “spike,” from the fact of the base being surrounded with ears or spikes, whence, probably, the Roman appellation. This species of valerian grows in the more distant and mountainous parts of India, Bootan and Nepaul, for instance.