306 COMPOSIT A, 
melting below 20°. It consists of free fatty acids. The 
alcoholic extract contains a sweet tasting, uncrystallizable 
sugar, not reducing Fehling’s solution; the aqueous solution 
of this extract is not affected by ferric salts, tannin or alka- 
foidal reagents. After exhausting with alcohol, the residue, on 
being treated with water, swells up to a white mass like 
_tragacanth, and mucilage and saccharine matter enter into 
solution. The mucilage is gelatinized by natural a 
acetate. 
Red Behen contains a small amount of white fat soluble in 
ether and benzol. Alcohol dissolves out a tannic acid, related 
to cinchotannic acid, and an alkaloid. The alkaloid is bitter, . 
soluble in ether with an opal-blue fluorescence, and. forms 
feathery crystals when evaporated from this solvent. It dis- 
solves in sulphuric acid with a violet-blue fluorescence, which 
is destroyed by dilution with water and restored by alkalies. 
We propose the name Bahmanine for this new alkaloid. The 
aqueous extract is mawkish and sweet, containing 6:2 per cent. 
of glucose. With two volumes of alsohol no mucilage is preci- 
pitated, but with four volumes a pulverulent deposit similar 
to inulin or inuloid is produced. This was collected on a filter, 
dissolved in boiling water and inverted. The resulting sugar 
‘reduced Fehling’s solution, — was right-handed towards — 
| ee a 
-VOLUTARELLA DIVARICATA, Benth. 
Fig. — Wight Te. te 145); Bot. Mag. I. 81, t. 4. 
Hab -—Central, Wes Gort and Southern India. The herb. 
Vernacular, —Bédderaed (Pers.,. Ind. _ Bazars). 
History, Uses, &c. —This drug is described by Maho- 
-metan physicians as the Shaukat-cl-baida of the Arabs, 
the Lafiniki of the Turks, and the Sanakhiird of the Syrians. 
Other Persian names given for it are Kangar-i-sufed and Asfar- 
, i-barf. It is nese described as a Se, Plant, : nhons: two 
Peet va en Ws ee 
