816 SOME POISONOUS PLANTS IN N.O. SOLANACE.K, iii., 



In the description of this norhyoscyamine base and its com- 

 pounds, the autlior recognised a close resemblance to the pro- 

 perties of his "Solandrine," which he discovered five years 

 earlier. 



With interest thus renewed, a larger supply of material was 

 obtained, and its alkaloids subjected to a more complete chemical 

 investigation, the results of which have proved the identity of 

 solandrine with Carr and Reynolds' norhyoscyamine. 



Norhyoscyamine is the next lower homologue of hyoscyamine. 

 In constitution it is a secondary base, and on the nitrogen bridge 

 across the tropine radicle it contains the group :NH in place of 

 the tertiary group iN-CHg in hyoscyamine. Only the hfvo- 

 rotatory forms of these occur in nature, and just as hyoscj'amine 

 may readily be racemised to inactive atropine, so the new- 

 alkaloid is converted into nor-atropine, the two pairs of isomers 

 differing from one another in constitution only by a methyl 

 group. It is this small difference, however, which constitutes 

 the point of remarkable interest in this compound, since nearly 

 all the known alkaloids are tertiary bases of the type \< .^ ; IS 



Among the numerous chemical reactions in the metabolism of 

 plants, one of the commonest, according to Pictet, is the methyl- 

 ation of amino groups by formaldehyde, 



R:lm + CH,0 = RiNCHa + O 



These amino groups are numerous in the plant. Not only are 

 they the products of katabolic processes, including the break 

 down of protein and chlorophyll, but they are also products of 

 chemo-synthesis. Formaldehyde is formed by photo-synthesis 

 in the leaves. 



Further, it is well established that these methylated com- 

 pounds can be made to undergo intramolecular change, whereby 

 the methyl group is taken into the ring as an internal link in 

 their chains of carbon atoms, and in this way such rings are 

 enlarged, for example:— 



pyrrole methyl pyrrole pyridine 



Pictet* has isolated some of these simple substances from the 

 ' *Ber. derdeut. chem. Ges., 40, 1907, 3771. 



