290 GRANATEiE, 



by the ancients, and among the Romans was in common use for tanning 

 leather/ as it still is in Tunis. 



Description — The fruit of the pomegranate tree is a spherical, 

 somewhat flattened and ohscurely six-sided berry, the size of a common 

 orange and often much larger, crowned by the thick, tubular, 5- to 

 9-toothed calyx. It has a smooth, hard, coriaceous skin, which when the 

 fruit is ripe, is of a brownish yellow tint, often finely shaded with red. 

 Membranous dissepiments, about 6 in number meeting in the axis of the 

 fruit, divide the upper and larger portion into equal cells. Below these 

 a confused conical diaphragm separates the lower and smaller half, 

 which in its turn is divided into 4 or 5 irregular cells. Each cell is fillt'l 

 with a large number of grains, crowded on thick spongy placentae, which 

 in the upper cells are parietal but in the lower appear to be central. 

 The grains, which are about | an inch in length, are oblong or obconical 

 and many-sided, and consist of a thin transparent vesicle containing an 

 acid, saccharine, red, juicy pulp, surrounding an elongated angular 

 seed. 



The only part of the fruit used medicinally is the peel, Cortex 

 Granati of the druggists, ivhich in the fresh state is leathery. "^^Tien 

 dry as imported, it is in irregular, more or less concave fragments, some 

 of which have the toothed, tubular calyx still enclosing the stamens and 

 style. It is tV to Vt7 of an inch thick, easily breaking with a short 

 corky fracture ; externally it is rather rough, of a yellowish brown -"■ 

 reddish colour. Internally it is more or less brown or yellow 

 honey-combed with depressions left by the seeds. It has hardly any 

 odour, but has a strongly astringent taste. 



Microscopic Structure— The middle layer of the peel consists of 



01 



; 



and 



large thin- walled and elongated, sometimes even branched cells, among 

 which occur thick-walled cells and fibro-vascular bundles. Both tne 

 outer and the inner surface are made up of smaller, nearly cubic am 

 densely packed cells. Small starch granules occur sparingly througftou^ 

 the tissue, as well as crystals of oxalate of calcium. 



Chemical Comp 



rhich in 



an aqueous infusion of the dried 



-The chief constituent is tannin, ww<-:'' 

 :ied peel produces with perchloride ol J^ 



an abundant dark blue precipitate. The peel also contains sugar anfl ' 

 little gum. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated, it yielded us o'J V' 



cent, of ash. 



Uses— Pomegranate peel is an excellent astringent, no^v aln 

 obsolete in British medicine. Waring ^ asserts that when comwn 

 with opium and an aromatic, as cloves, it is a most useful remea> 

 the chronic dysentery of the natives of India, as well as in diarrnu^ 



CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS. 



Pomegranate-root BarJr; F. Ecorcc de racine de Grenad 



G. Granatwuvzelrinde. 



Botanical Origin-^ unica Granatin L., see page 2S9. 



H 



•In addition to the particulars 



^See also Hehn, KuUurpJ!anzen, Berlin, « Phat-m. of hulia, 1868. 93. 447 



1877, 206. 



