Colophony is tremendously useful, and is has a wide range of applications within the fields of music, dance, construction, visual art, electronics, medicine, cosmetics, and prestidigitation.

It is an effective tool in the Art of War. Roger Bacon provides instructions for creating Flying Fire with colophony:
Flying Fire (ignis volatilis in aere) may be obtained in the following manner: take one part of colophony, the same of sulphur, and two parts saltpeter.

A fourteenth century recipe for Greek fire called for a mixture containing colophony, sulphur, and Roman glassa to be distilled in an alembic. Bombax was then soaked in the mixture, and the resulting missile was hurled from ballista.

Conversely, it is also a tool in the Art of Healing:

A remedy for scratches taught me by the Herald to the King of France. 4 ounces of virgin wax, 4 ounces of colophony, 2 ounces of incense. Keep each thing separate; and melt the wax, and then put the incense and then the colophony, make a mixture of it and put it onto the sore place.
– Leonardo DaVinci

It can be used for dressing blisters, in drawing salves, and as a balm for bleeding piles.

Its volatile nature and its applications in warfare have scooted colophony into Fire’s jurisdiction, ruled by Mars, though some hold that it is governed by the Sol and Air.

The scent is resinous (surprise!), though a bit green.

Colophony has been known to cause contact dermatitis, and burning this resin in excess may cause occupational asthma. According to the 1888 edition of the American Journal of Pharmacy, powdered colophony may spontaneously combust. Please use caution.

Disclaimer Time! Also, please don’t try to make Greek fire or flying fire or anything else nutty with this info. I don’t want anyone using information that I provide for horrible, horrible crazytimes. I also can’t be responsible for Leonardo DaVinci’s questionable medical advice.

The plant grows to height of about 7 feet and in spring and early summer contains a milky juice. It is visited by numbers of beetles which puncture the stem and thus cause an exudation, part of which dries on the stem, the rest falling to the ground where it becomes mixed with stones and other impurities found in the gum collected by the natives. The gum resin is found in special cavities in the tissues of the stem, root and petioles of the leaves. The name of the drug is said to be derived from the Temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan Desert where it was collected by the ancients. The gum resin occurs in commerce in two forms, tear ammoniacum and lump or block ammoniacum. The former alone is official in England and consists of pale yellow nodular masses varying in size from a pea to a walnut, brittle when cold but softens on warming, fractured surface, milky white or pale brown in colour. The lump ammoniacum, which is that collected from the ground, is used sometimes but is not official in medicine. The odour of the drug is slight, taste acrid and persistent.
– M. Grieve

Gum ammoniac is ruled by Jupiter (the planet), and is useful in rituals that honor Jupiter (the Sky-God), Zeus or any of his sons, Amun, or Zefs-Ammon. It is very suitable as an offering for any of these deities.

Gum ammoniac is one of the components used in an incense employed in protective magick of a Jupiterean nature: fortification of community and kingdom, benevolent rule, and just law. It can also be employed in rituals that create prosperity through expansion and as a countermeasure to Saturnian works. This resin can be burned to honor all of the archangels, but is sacred to Gabriel in particular.

It has been cited in Coptic texts adjuring the powers of the divine realm against malevolent, demonic forces, particularly during ceremonial evocation and invocation rituals:

Draw the four angels in front of the curtain of the father, while you are wearing a wreath of roses, with a branch of myrtle in your hand, with gum ammoniac in your mouth.

Offering; frankincense, storax, stacte. Nest; slay the six doves. Cinnamon; rose oil, charcoal from white wood; olive wood.
– Di alcuni manoscritti copti

Gum ammoniac is also the traditional adhesive used in gluing parchment and gilding with gold leaf.

Agrippa recommends the following recipe for Mars incense:
For Mars, take ephorbium, bedellium, gum ammoniac, the roots of both hellebores, the loadstones, and a little sulphur; and incorporate them all with the brain of a hart, the blood of a man and the blood of a black cat.

It has a pungent, peculiar aroma when burned on its own, and it sticks with ya.

“Shortly after completing the Barnes Foundation Arboretum School Program in 2005 and during the planning of my own native plant garden I became inspired to start this project. The mission of this work is to record and document what’s become of the plants in our modern culture by contrasting their past and present life histories.

I like to think of my work as contemporary natural history specimens that are influenced by the traditions of specimen mounting and botanical illustration. I combine images with words and create visual narratives that reveal the science, history, and beauty of my subjects. I’m interested in many aspects of plants; from the relationship that people have with them to their ecology, mythology, and medicinal uses.

Original pieces are produced in small editions on 100% watercolor paper. I use a variety of media including: collage, digital imaging, gouache, acrylics, and pen and ink. Some of my inspirations are: Medieval Herbals and manuscripts, Traditional Chinese Medicine (I study it), Pop Art and Surrealism.”

Via the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.

Artist unknown.

Pine for the Yule incense.

I’m my own best guinea pig. As some of you know, I’m quitting smoking for the eleventybillionth time. This is a little something I made to help me push through this: Hojari frankincense, Sumatran benzoin, Argentinian hyssop, wild harvested white sage, and organically grown peppermint leaf, with Indonesian Daemonorops draco, black pepper, and sweet cinnamon from Madagascar because I punch through problems best with FIERY!MARS’ness.

A ginormous jug of Peace Water, created today because I friggin’ needed it. Contains rose otto, angelica root, organic lavender, wild steam distilled frankincense, and Sri Lankan sandalwood derived from heartwood. Take that, grumpy mood.

TOMATO
Historically, tomato is not a widely-used note in perfumery, but it is gaining a little traction. Its pungent, spicy scent is evocative of summer gardens, and lends well to fresh, wild, outdoorsy fragrances.

The correspondences of the tomato in magical work is complex. The bisexual flowers of the tomato plant can be used in works of transformation, duality, and the combination of opposing forces. The tomato plant corresponds to Saturn or Venus, depending on your tradition, your intent, and your point of view. In contemporary magick, the fruit is used in love work – their voluptuous shape and piquant-sweet flavor are very much in tune with the Venus aspect. Tomatoes are, however, members of the nightshade family – a clan of plants that relates to death, transformation, invisibility, authority, discipline, and, to the unscrupulous, malefic magick. This firmly thrusts the plant back under the auspices of Saturn. Until the early nineteenth century, many believed that the fruit of the tomato was poisonous. Poison and toxicity, as concepts, are another manifestation of Saturn’s power. In our Twilight Alchemy Lab division, we generally use the fruit of the plant for Venus work, and the leaves and roots for Saturnian operations.

The tomato is much more complicated than it seems, no?

Notable tomato-laden BPAL scent:
JERSEY DEVIL
The scent of the wild, hauntingly beautiful Pine Barrens of New Jersey! Pitch pine with blackberry leaf, cranberry, cedar wood and tomato leaf.

(Photo by m’self of a tomato plant in my garden.)

Carnations from the TAL garden. It corresponds to Sol and used in works of protection, love, pleasure, joy, friendship, healing, and strength.