In the Tabernacle spices were used for making holy incense. Walker sites English Bibles as using "spice" for the astragal plant, but it does not produce a spice. She writes that it is actually the gum tragacanth or thorny astragal. It is from the original word necoth.
Astragal has dainty blossoms, similar to the pea, that are light yellow. It is a very hearty shrub. The desert astragal is native to Israel. It survives well in desert and cooler areas north that have greater rainfall. It also lives at any elevation quite well. Over 20 varieties are known. One of these is two feet high, ball-shaped with hundreds of spikes. Another variety is taller and has large thorns that deter man and animal with its barbed wire sort of features. It is thought that this astragal cited in Chronicles is a dwarf size, thorny, with very sharp spines. Its thorns exude an expensive resin during daylight hours. It is collected with cotton balls catching the accumulated lumps of the gum.
See Old Testament aloe, Balm of Gilead and Myrrh
Sources: All the Plants of the Bible, Walker; Smith's Bible Dictionary
2 Chronicles 9:1, 5 (KJV) And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart..... And she said to the king, It was a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom:
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