14 COMBRETACEZL. 
as the name of the shrub in the Mauritius, states that if more 
than four or five seeds are given they are apt, in some — 
constitutions, to cause spasm and other ill effects. (Pharm. of 
India.) Loureiro states that the leaves are astringent. 
plant is cultivated as a flowering shrab in most parts of India, 
but except in the Southern Provinces it very seldom ripens its 
fruit, and its medicinal properties are consequently unknown 
in most parts of the country. 
Description.—The fruits are about an inch in length, 
oval or oblong, pointed at either extremity, and sharply pen- — 
tagonal ; they dehisce from the apex. The woody pericarp is — 
=r 
“a 
nally, (ig. in Hanbury’s Science Papers, p. 232.) 
Shemecal composition. —Quisqualis fruits consist of 41 parts 
ed by ether amounts to 15 per cent. ; :% is of a yellow colours 
peculiar odour, and has a specific gravity of 9169. It yield 
on saponification 94°7 per cent. of fatty acids melting at 43° 
The oil with sulphuric acid passes from a reddish-brown col 
through red and green to purple. The alcoholic extract, af 
removal of the oil, is intensely sweet owing to the presence 0 
an amorphous fermentable sugar similar to levulose th 
solution in water acidified with acetic acid and s 
ether affords on evaporation of the ether a crystalline residue, — 
soluble in sulphuric acid without colour, striking an orange j 
tates with the alkaloidal reagents. The drug now treated with 3 
water yields a deep reddish brown colouring matter of the 
nature of an organic acid. It darkens slightly with iron — 
salts, gives no precipitate with gelatine, and is wholly removed — 
evaporated. The bebavions of the extract points to 2 
