PATCHOULY.—­Under this name are imported into this country the dried foliaceous tops of a strongly odoriferous labiate plant, growing three feet high in India and China, called in Bengalee and Hindu, pucha pat.  About 46 cases, of from 50 to 110 lbs. each, were imported from China, by the way of New York, in 1844.  The price asked was 6s. per pound.  Very little is known of the plant yielding it.  Mr. George Porter, late of the island of Pinang, stated that it grows wild there and on the opposite shores of the Malay peninsula.  Dr. Wallich says, that it obviously belongs to the family Labiatae.  Viney, in the “French Journal of Pharmacy,” suggests that it is the Plectranthus graveolens of R. Brown.  It forms a shrub of two or three feet in height.  It is the Pogostemon patchouly.  The odor of the dried plant is strong and peculiar, and to some persons not agreeable.  The dried tops imported into England are a foot or more in length.  In India it is used as an ingredient in tobacco for smoking, and for scenting the hair of women.  In Europe it is principally used for perfumery purposes, it being a favorite with the French, who import it largely from Bourbon.  The Arabs use and export it more than any other nation.  Their annual pilgrimship takes up an immense quantity of the leaf.  They use it principally for stuffing mattrasses and pillows, and assert that it is very efficacious in preventing contagion and prolonging life.  It requires no sort of preparation, being simply gathered and dried in the sun; too much drying, however, is hurtful, inasmuch as it renders the leaf liable to crumble to dust in packing and stowing on board.  The characteristic smell of Chinese or Indian ink is owing to an admixture of this plant in its manufacture.  M. de Hugel found the plant growing wild near Canton.  By distillation it yields a volatile oil, on which the odor and remarkable properties depend.  This oil is in common use in India for imparting the peculiar fragrance of the leaf to clothes among the superior classes of natives.  The origin of its use is this:—­A few years ago, real Indian shawls bore an extravagant price, and purchasers could always distinguish them by their odor; in fact, they were perfumed with Patchouly; the French manufacturers at length discovered this secret, and used to import the plant to perfume articles of their make, and thus palm off homespun shawls as real India!  Some people put the dry leaves in a muslin bag, and thus use it as we do lavender, scenting drawers in which linen is kept; this is the best way to use it, as this odor, like musk, is most agreeable when very dilute.—­("Gardeners’ Chronicle.”)

The root of some parasitical plant, under the name of kritz, is used in Cashmere to wash the celebrated shawls, soap is used only for white shawls.

From the flowers of the Bengal quince (AEgle marmemolos) a fragant liquid is distilled in Ceylon known as marmala water, which is much used as a perfume for sprinkling by the natives.