Dictionarium polygraphicum. Tragacanth, adracant.

Dictionarium Polygraphicum:
Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested.
Vol II.
London: Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, and S. Austen in St. Paul's Church Yard. MDCCXXXV.
1735
A kind of gum, oozing out at incisions, made in the trunk and larger branches of a plant, or little shrub of the same name.

Mr. Tournefort tells us, the naked hillocks of mount Ida in Candia produce a deal of the plant Tragacantha, which gives the gum spontaneously towards the end of June, and in the following months; when the nutritious juice of the plant, thickened by the heat, bursts most of the vessels it is contain'd in.

This juice coagulates in threads, which make their way into the pores of the bark; where being push'd forwards by new juice, they get through the bark, and are at length hardened in the air, cither into little lumps, or into twisted pieces, in form of little worms, longer or shorter, according to the matter of which they are form'd.

This plant grows also in several places of the Levant, par ticularly about Aleppo.

The gum is of different colours and qualities; some being white, others greyish; some red, and some almost black: but the white is the best.

It should be chosen clear, smooth, and twisted, like little worms.