137 



THE CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION OF SOME POISON- 

 OUS PLANTS IN THE N.O. SOLANACE^. 



Part v. — The Alkaloids of Duboisia Leicuhardtii F.v.M. 



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.) 



Duboisia Leichhardtii is a small evergreen tree, endemic in 

 Eastern Australia. It was discovered by Leichhardt in his 

 travels, and sent by him to Baron von Mueller, who described it 

 in 1867. Leichhardt's specimens are in the Melbourne Herba- 

 rium, but no locality is given other than "extra-tropical Eastern 

 Australia." The first specimens bearing a definite locality were 

 obtained from Mt. Playfair, near Springsure in Central Queens- 

 land. These were sent by a squatter to von Mueller in 1890, 

 and are also in the Melbourne Herbarium. In the same year, it 

 was found by Dr. J. Shirley growing along the Stuart River, 140 

 miles north-north-west of Brisbane, and specimens were placed 

 in the Queensland National Herbarium. The only other record 

 of this plant is that in Moore and Betche's Flora of New South 

 Wales, where it is stated to have been found in the Gray 

 Ranges, which cross the extreme north-west corner of New South 

 Wales into Queensland. But there are no corresponding speci- 

 mens from this locality in Australian collections. 



Though so very little is known, and the records are so few, 

 concerning Duboisia Leichhardtii, the three localities given lie 

 in a great inverted crescent, 800 miles long, stretching across 

 Queensland from the south-west corner, through the central area, 

 and down to the south-east. 



Von Mueller described the plant under the name of Antho- 

 cercis, in his Fragmenta phytographia (Vol. vi., 1867-8, p. 142), 



