Argania Sideroxylon.—Roem. and Sch. Syst. Veg. iv. 502; Alph. DC. Prod. viii. 187; Hook. in Kew Journ. Bot. vi. (1854) 97, t. iii. iv.; De Noé, in Rev. Hort. 1853, 125; Ball, in Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. xvi. 563.
Sideroxylon spinosum.—Linn. Hort. Cliff. 69 (excl. syn. et loc.); Correa, in Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii. 393.
Rhamnus siculus.—Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. 12, iii. 227, excl. syn., non Bocc.
R. pentaphyllus.—Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. Gmel. 398, fid. Dryandr. excl. syn. Bocc.
Elæodendron Argan.—Retz Obs. Bot. vi. 26; Willd. Sp. Pl. i. 1148, excl. syn. Jacq. and Bocc.; Schousboe, Iagttag. over væxtrig. in Marocc. 89.
Argan.—Dryandr. in Trans. Linn. Soc. ii. 225.
This tree is rightly regarded as the most interesting vegetable production of Marocco, being confined to that empire and to a very circumscribed area in it, belonging to an almost exclusively tropical natural family, yielding a most important article of diet to the inhabitants, and a wood that for hardness and durability rivals any hitherto described. The earliest account of the Argan tree known to us is a brief one by the celebrated African traveller Leo Africanus, who visited Marocco in 1510. Speaking of some of the customs of the Moors, Leo Africanus says: ‘Unto their Argans (for so they call a kind of olive which they have) they put nuts; out of which two simples they express a very bitter oil, using it for a sauce to some of their meats, and pouring it into their lamps’ (‘Purchas,’ ii. 772). And in another passage he describes the oil correctly, as ‘of a fulsome and strong savour.’ The further history of the Argan tree is given in a very full and careful account by the late Sir W. Hooker, in the ‘London Journal of Botany’ for 1854 (vol. vi. p. 97, Tab. iii. iv.), which, as the work is of limited circulation, we here introduce.
‘Through the kindness and by the exertions of the Earl of Clarendon, Chief Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Royal Gardens of Kew have been put in possession of living plants and fresh seeds of a tree or shrub very little known in Europe, little known even to botanists, but highly esteemed by the Moors, in those parts of Marocco where it is a native, for its useful qualities, viz. the “Argan.” Its economical properties are best explained by the copy of a letter which his Lordship did me the favour to communicate along with the plants and seeds, from Henry Grace, Esq., British Acting Vice-Consul at Mogador, addressed to J. H. Drummond Hay, Esq., Her Britannic Majesty’s Agent and Consul-General at Tangier; both of which gentlemen spared no pains in procuring the information and seeds and living specimens; an example we should be glad to see followed by our consuls in other countries abounding in new and useful plants.
‘“Mogador, November 7, 1853.
‘“Sir,—The Argan tree grows more or less throughout the states of Western Barbary, but principally in the province of Haha, and south of this town. The soil in which it is found is light, sandy, and very strong; it is usually seen upon the hills, which are barren of all else, and where irrigation is impossible.