CIK 



journal of Pharmacology, 



Devoted to the Advances Made in Materia Medica in its Branches. 



Pharmacy, Pharmacognosy, Chemistry, Botany, Pharmaco- 



Dynamics, Therapeutics and Toxicology. 



Published for the Alumni Association of the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York, 

 by The New Era Printing Company, Lancaster, Pa. 



Vol. V. 



AUGUST, 1898. 



No. 8. 



A Contribution to the Pharmacology of Grindelia 



Robusta.* 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



(MRDEN. 



By John Glassford, Ph.G., Phar.D. 



[Contribution from the Laboratories of the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York.] 



I. — Botany and Histology. 



The genus Grindelia, named after Professor Grindel, a Russian bot- 

 anist, is a member of the natural order Compositae. It comprises coarse, 

 perennial, or biennial herbs. Gray described twelve species, two of which 

 G. robusta and G. squarrosa, are official in the U. S. Pharmacopese under 

 the title of Gri?idelia. 



Grindelia robusta Nuttall, also known as Hardy Grindelia, Wild Sun- 

 flower, Gum Plant, Yellow Tar Weed, is found in salt marshes along the 

 Pacific coast, in some localities very abundantly. Dr. H. P. Gibbons, of 

 Alameda, Cal., who first brought the drug to notice describes it as follows : 



" It is a robust species, from ^ to 3 feet high, glabrous, suffruticose, 

 with numerous stems from creeping roots, loosely corymbose, branched 

 above ; leaves from ^ to 2 inches broad and 1 ]/o to 5 inches long, some- 

 what oblong, spatulate, clasping, mostly obtuse, serrate, mucronate ; 

 involucre somewhat leafly at the base. The heads are from Y% to 3 inches 

 in diameter. The disk is at first filled with a white resinous sperm or 

 varnish secreted by the involucre which covers the rays and florets as they 

 expand. The pappus consists of from two to four bristles. At about the 

 middle of April or the first of May (the time when the flowers begin to 

 force open the involucre) a white resinous substance begins to exude 



* Submitted as a Competitive Thesis for the Faculty Prize, Post-Graduate Class, 189S. 



