P268

Ebony

Dioscorides (1): It is of two types, Abyssinian and Indian. The Abyssinian is black, has no cloaks and resembles the rubbed horn in its smoothness. When it breaks, its rupture is thick. Smashes the tongue and astringens it. When it is placed on the ember, it gives off a vapor of scented smell…… The Indian has streaks of white color and veins of the color of the hyacinth. Both, when they break, their rupture is thick……

P316

Amber (2)

It is said that it grows on the bottom of the sea and that it forms in it as the species of mushrooms and truffles, both white and black. When the sea shakes then it throws rocks, stones and pieces of amber from its bottom; It is frequent that it falls towards the country of Zany and the coasts of Sihr (3), of the land of the Arabs, towards which the trained camel runs because they recognize it. When they hunt on these camels on the seashores and the camels perceive the amber that has been thrown by the sea rushing on him and kneeling, the rider catches him. The best amber is the one that falls on this side and on the islands of Zany and its coasts, which is round, blue, very rarely of the size of an ostrich's egg, but rather smaller. The [amber] that eats the fish known as iwal (5)(which causes death, remaining floating on the water - then the people of Zany and others, come and throw on hooks and ropes, They take out the amber-), the one in the gut exhales a foul smell, and it is the one that the perfumeries of Iraq and of Persia knows like mandani, whereas the fragments that are close to the back are the more pure the more time it has been inside the body.

P340 

Coco is the nut of India. Is the palm tree of the islands in the Arabian Sea (Larwi) (4) that is next to the islands of Zany.

It is said that the coconut is the "palm of bedelio,"(6) and that the land of India only leaves its mark on it when it is collected there and then it becomes Coco. These islands are known as Maldives (Dibayat) and they produce most of them (the coconut). Another of these islands is Ceylon (Sirandib)

(1) Dioscorides:(40–90 AD) was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of de Materia Medica.

(2) His account on ambergris: The earliest source in which this information is found is Ibn Masawaih 857, others who repeated it are: Ibn Wadih al-Ya'qubi d897, Ibn Rosteh 903, al Masudi 916, Ibn Serapion 950, al Tamimi 980, Abu al Mutahhar al Azdi 1010; Ibn Butlan 1066; Ibn al-Wafid 1074; Nuwayri 1333; Musa Ud-Damiri 1405; Al Qalqashandi 1418. Off course much was added and discarded on the way. The most extensive article on ambergris is from Musa Ud-Damiri 1405.

(3) Sihr; coastal town in Hadhramaut in eastern Yemen.

(4) Larwi: In the 9th century AD, author Ya'qubi wrote: The second sea begins at Ra’s al-Jumha and is called Larwi. (=The Arabian Sea).

(5) the whale.

(6) This is not correct. Bdellium (also bdellion or false myrrh) is a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin extracted from Commiphora wightii plants of India, and from Commiphora africana trees growing in sub-saharan Africa. Not from palm trees.