previous next

بَشَامٌ ذ [The tree of the balsam of Mekkeh; amyris opobalsamum; mentioned by Forskål in his Flora Aegypt. Arab. p. ex. as growing in the middle mountainous region of El-Yemen, and described by him in p. 79 of the same work; in both places as being called in Arabic ابو شام, which is a mistake for بشام;] a certain odoriferous kind of tree, (S K,) of sweet taste, (TA,) the leaves of which, (AHn, K) pounded, and mixed with الحِنَّآء [or the leaves of the Lawsonia inermis], (AHn,) blacken the hair; (AHn, K) it is a kind of tree having a stem and branches, and small leaves, but larger than the leaves of the [species of marjoram called] صَعْتَر, and having no fruit; [but only, as Forskål states, a blackish seed, which is abortive;] when its leaf or its branch is cut, it pours forth a white milk; (AHn, TA;) and its twigs are used for cleaning the teeth: (S, K:) n. un. with ة. (TA.) In a trad., mention is made of persons having no food but the leaves of the بشام. (TA.)

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Dictionary Entry Lookup
Use this tool to search for dictionary entries in all lexica.
Search for in
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: