RUBIACEA. 197 
sidue with alcohol and water, left a feebly coloured acid 
ng the following properties :— 
It was markedly acid to litmus, and had a bitter after-taste. 
dissolved readily in alcohol and water, and was but little 
soluble in ether. It united both with bases and acids. Its 
hydrochloride in aqueous solution when evaporated over 
sulphuric acid assumed an arborescent crystallization; the 
_ plates or prisms. The acid was not precipitated with sulphate 
_ of copper, but gave with nitrate of silver a white gelatinous 
precipitate, which in the moist state became rapidly reduced 
: exposure. Lead acetate gave a white granular precipitate, 
Two determinations of the platinum in the platino-chloride 
dried at 115° C. gave 29-50 per cent. of platinum. The formula . 
(C® H* NO? HCl) 2P+ Cl* requires 29°72 per cent. of platinum, 
nd this is the platino-chloride of a pyridine-monocarboxylie 
id, viz., C° H* N. COOH. Further, the acid, or one of its 
Salts, when distilled with lime, yielded as a product of decom- 
sition a volatile base which possessed the peculiar odour 
and general properties of pyridine, This property of the acid, 
coupled with its behaviour towards reagents, and the per- 
centage of platinum in its platino-chloride, may be accepted 
as trustworthy evidence of its being a carboxylic derivative 
‘Of pyridine. If nitric acid be used in place of potassium 
rmanganate the same acid is obtained. 
It would therefore appear that in common with the rest 
of the non-oxygenated alkaloids hymenodictyonine is con- 
itutionally related to pyridine. 
~OLDENLANDIA CORYMBOSA, Linn. 
_ Fig.—Rheede Hort. Mal. z., t. 35. 
-Hab.—Throughout India. The herb. ae 
Vernacular.—Daman-papra, Bakra, Pit-pApra (Hind.), Khet- ie 
para, Pit-p4para (Beng.), Khet-papada, Pitpépada, Pari 
far.), Parpadagam (Tam.), Kallasabatra-sige (Can.), 
ella~vemu ( Tel.), Khet-pépra (Guz.). a | 
