Elémi. n.s.

This drug is improperly called gum elemi, being a resin. The genuine elemi is brought from Æthiopia in flattish masses, or in cylinders, of a yellowish colour. Its smell is acrid and resinous. It is very rare in Europe, and supposed to be produced by a tree of the olive kind. The spurious or American elemi, almost the only kind known, is of a whitish colour, with a greater or less tinge of a greenish or yellowish. It is of an agreeable smell, and of an acrid and bitterish taste. It proceeds from a tall tree, which the Brasilians wound at night, and in the morning collect the resin that has run out. Hill's Materia Medica.