← Glossary
resin
Myrrh
Commiphora myrrha
Origin
Somalia, Ethiopia, Arabian peninsula
The smell
Dark, bittersweet, slightly medicinal. Warm and animalic with a bitter edge when dry. Like incense mixed with something almost bodily. Complex in a way that synthetic materials cannot replicate.
Key quality
Anxiolytic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial. Beta-elemene documented in clinical trials.
Historical use
Commiphora myrrha - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-019.jpg
Appears in
Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, c.1897. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.