Somalia and Oman

Boswellia sacra grows in Dhofar, Hadramawt and northern Somalia. Somali resin is often sold as B. carteri (or carterii); many botanical databases now treat B. carteri as a synonym of B. sacra. Chiral analysis nonetheless shows clear differences between oils of the two origins: a 2012 study found about 68% alpha pinene in Omani B. sacra oil, against about 37% in Somali B. carteri oil, which also carried limonene (about 14%), myrcene and alpha thujene.

Boswellia frereana grows only in northern Somalia, on limestone cliffs near the sea. Its resin, called maydi locally, forms large pale yellow tears; B. sacra/carteri resin is called beeyo. In Somaliland both are tapped from about April to October.

Boswellia papyrifera from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan is another large frankincense source; its oil is quite different, with octyl acetate as the main constituent. A "frankincense" label does not name the species; the Latin name and collection area are needed.

In 2000 UNESCO inscribed the "Land of Frankincense" in Dhofar on the World Heritage List. The property has four parts: the frankincense trees of Wadi Dawkah, the caravan oasis of Shisr (Wubar), and the ports of Khor Rori and Al Baleed. Together they trace the frankincense trade from tapping ground to harbour over many centuries.

In Dhofar, trees on the coastal plain are tapped from about late March to June, before the khareef monsoon; trees in the desert zone behind the mountains are harvested until about September. The tapper makes a shallow cut, lets the resin flow and dry for about two weeks, scrapes it off and reopens the same wound. Oman's finest resin is sold as hojari.

A rapid conservation assessment of B. sacra in Oman, published in 2025, found threats and population status varying from area to area. Wadi Dawkah now serves as a pilot for controlled tapping.

Puntland is a major producing area of B. sacra frankincense, mainly in the Bari region and partly in Sanaag. Resin is graded in Bosaso before export. Somaliland exported about 1,000 tonnes of frankincense in 2017.

By custom, a tree is tapped only once its trunk reaches about 10 cm in diameter, with 3 to 13 shallow cuts per round, and is rested by season. Anjanette DeCarlo's team surveyed Somaliland in 2010 and again in 2016 to 2017. They found trees bearing over 100 cuts, two tapping rounds a year instead of one, and at one site only about a third of adult trees healthy and more than a quarter dead.

Resin prices at the tapping site rose roughly tenfold between 2010 and 2016, but most of the value went to intermediaries. The authors link overtapping to weakened customary tenure, a more complex supply chain and rising world demand.

In 2019 Nature Sustainability published "Frankincense in peril" by Bongers, Groenendijk and colleagues, based on 23 populations and 21,786 trees. Over 75% of populations lacked small trees, with natural regeneration absent for decades; models projected a 71.2% population decline over 25 years and a halving of frankincense output within 20 years. The drivers were grazing, fire and careless tapping.

A caveat: this study covered B. papyrifera in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan, not B. sacra or B. frereana. For the Somali and Omani species the evidence comes from smaller field surveys and is still debated; some reviews note a lack of recent fieldwork for firm conclusions. IUCN lists B. sacra as Near Threatened.

Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) grows wild in Somalia, Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula and Oman. The dried resin consists of water soluble gum, alcohol soluble resin and a small amount of essential oil. The bitter, warm, slightly mushroomy scent of myrrh oil comes mainly from furanosesquiterpenes: a recent analysis gave furanoeudesma 1,3 diene at about 41%, curzerene about 26% and lindestrene about 13%.

Opoponax in perfumery is the resin of Commiphora guidottii, called hadi or bisabol locally, which grows in Somalia and Ethiopia. It is not the umbellifer genus Opopanax that lent the name. The dried resin holds about 5 to 9% essential oil, 15 to 40% alcohol soluble resin and 50 to 80% gum. Opoponax is used mainly as a resinoid in amber accords, giving a sweet, warm, balsamic note.