118 



THE CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION OF SOME POISON- 

 OUS PLANTS IN THE N.O. SOLANACE^. 



Part iv. — The Chemistry of the Duboisias. 



By James M. Petrie, D.Sc, F.I.C, Linnean Macleay Fellow 

 OF the Society in Biochemistry. 



(From the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Sydney.) 



The genus of Australian plants known as Duboisia consists of 

 three or possibly four species. Two of these are well known — 

 D. myoporoides and D. Hopwoodii, and have formed the subject 

 of numerous investigations by chemists, pharmacologists, and 

 physicians during forty years. In regard to their active prin- 

 ciples, they are perhaps the most interesting of all our native 

 flora, and have received greater attention than any others The 

 third — D. Leichhardtii — is a Queensland species, and nothing is 

 known of its chemical composition or active constituents. D. 

 CamjybeUi has been recorded as probably a new species, but ap- 

 parently it has never been botanically described. It was found 

 in Western Australia ten years ago, and since the first record 

 appeared (Journ. W. Aust. Nat. Hist. Soc, 1906) nothing 

 further concerning it has been made known. 



Duboisia myoporoides R.Br. 



i. This evergreen tree is native to Eastern Australia and the 

 islands to the north. Its range extends from the Shoalhaven 

 River in the south to Cape York, and is continued into New 

 Guinea, the Philippine Islands, and New Caledonia. It was 

 described in 1810 by R. Brown(17), who named the genus after 

 the French botanist Dubois. Brown placed it in the family 

 Solanacese; Bentham transferred it to Scrophulariaceae; and when 



