Folium barbaricum is the spikenard, a plant whose leaves and roots produce a strong sweetly aromatic unguent. Like myrrh or sweet-scented resins, it is used in the concoction of perfumes. A pound of folium barbaricum can easily fetch a price of a hundred denarii. The plant grows in a very few remote parts of Syria, but it is abundant in the Indies, where the natives call it bacchar.

Its name is derived from Barbarikè, the name of the port at an estuary of the Indus River where Greek and Roman traders buy it for their home markets. From Barbarikè ships sail along the coasts of Scindi, Gadrosia, Karmania and Arabia before entering the Persian Gulf and continuing to Egypt, and thence to the Roman world.