An ingredient in the incense burned at the golden altar, in the Holy Place, Exodus 30:34. It is the gum of a plant growing in Abyssinia, Arabia, and Syria, called by Pliny stagonitis, but supposed to be the same as the Bubon Galbanum of Linnaeus. The gum is unctuous and adhesive, of a strong and somewhat astringent smell.

Heb. helbenah, (Exodus 30:34), one of the ingredients in the holy incense. It is a gum, probably from the Galbanum officinale.

GAL'BANUM, n. Heb.varied in orthography, from to milk.

The concrete gummy resinous juice of an umbelliferous plant, called Ferula Africana, &c., and by Linne, Bubon galbanum, which grows in Syria, the East Indies and Ethiopia. This gum comes in pale-colored, semitransparent, soft, tenacious masses,of different shades, from white to brown. It is rather resinous than gummy, and has a strong unpleasant smell, with a bitterish warm taste. It is unctuous to the touch, and softens between the fingers. When distilled with water or spirit, it yields an essential oil,and by distillation in a retort without mixture, it yields an empyreumatic oil of a fine blue color,but this is changed in the air to a purple.

one of the perfumes employed in the preparation of the sacred incense. (Exodus 10:34) The galbanum of commerce is brought chiefly from India and the Levant. It is a resinous gum of a brownish-yellow color and strong disagreeable smell, usually met with in masses, but sometimes found in yellowish tear-like drops. But, though galbanum itself is well known, the plant which yields it has not been exactly determined.