LEGUMINOSZE. 425 
roots of the plant, and are composed of the woody layers of 
_ the root spread out and separated by a large addition of soft 
_ cellular tissue. The external surface of the tuber is brown and 
__seurfy from exfoliation of the tuberous coat. The cut surface 
_ iswhite and spongy, and shows several concentric rings of woody 
_ fibres, and numerous well-marked medullary rays. ‘The taste is 
_ somewhat acrid, slightly bitter, and very mucilaginous. The 
2 colour is not affected by ferric chloride or solution of iodine. 
The following description of the plant is given in the Flora of 
_ British India :—‘‘ Stems shrubby, the branches finely grey 
° downy. Stipules minute, deciduous, cordate-ovate; leaflets 
3 membranous, roundish, 4} to 1 ft. long, green, glabrescent above, 
_ densely clothed with whitish adpressed hairs beneath; flowers 
in dense, virgate, leafless, often panicled racemes, reaching 6 
to 9 inches long; pedicels very densely fascicled ; calyx § to 4 
in. long, densely silky ; corolla short, blue, not quite twice the 
calyx ; limb of standard orbicular, distinctly spurred ; pod 2 to 
3 inches long, membranous, flat, 3 to 6-seeded, clothed with 
ng grey silky bristly hairs.” 
Chemical composition.—The peeled tubers in slices, dried by 
exposure to hot air, and reduced to powder, lost 5-21 per cent. 
f moisture at 100° C. The ash amounted to 18°01 per cent. 
No trace of manganese could be detected in the ash. 
_ By exhaustion with 98 per cent. alcohol, a slightly yellowish 
__ tincture was obtained, which dried to a brittle mass easily re~ 
qd 
