276 BUFEORBIACEuE, 



yellowish viscid secretion ; the wood is loaded with starch. 

 The taste of the bark is acrid. 



The fruit is ovoid, 6-striated, tricoccous and fleshy; when ripe 

 it is of a pale greenish-yellow ; as it gradually dries up it 

 becomes black and partially dehiscent. There is one seed in 

 each cell. The seeds {Pignons d'Inde) are of the same shape as 

 Castor seeds, | of an inch long and rather less than half an 

 inch broad ; the dorsal surface is arched and marked by a hardly 

 perceptible ridge about the middle ; the ventral surface has a 

 well-marked ridge. At one end of the seed is a white scar. 

 The testa is of a dull black and irregularly fissured all over, 

 the fissures are yellowish. The kernel is enclosed in a thin, 

 white membranous covering like that of the Castor seed. 



The cotyledons are f oliaceous, the radicle short and thick, tlic 

 albumen copious and oily. 



Chemical eomjposlthn. — The kernels of the seeds of /. Cuycafi 

 were found by Arnaudonand Ubaldini (7ro;?//s Jahrcshcr,, 1858) 

 to contain 7*2 per cent, water, 37-5 oil, 55-3 sugar, starcli, 

 albumin, casein, and inorganic matters. The kernels yielded 

 4-8 per cent, ash, and 4'2 per cent, nitrogen ; the kernels and 

 husks together G per cent, ash, and 2-9 per cent, nitrogen. The 

 oil yielded by saponification, glycerine and an acid, which, as 

 well as the uusaponified oil, produced caprylic alcohol by 

 distillation with hydrate of potassium. Eouis had previously 

 separated from it a liquid and solid fatty acid, and named the 

 latter Isoacetic Acid, C'^H'OQ^. Cadet de Gassicourt (1824) 

 found in the seeds an acrid resin. 



r.M. Horn (Z"<Y.^>2a/. C/^m.,xxvii., 163— 165) states that 

 the oil begins to crystallize at 9°, and is completely solid at 

 0°, at 15° its sp. gr. is 9192. It differs from Castor oil in 



sparing solubility in alcohol. It appc^ars to saponify 

 readily in the cold, but in reality forms only acid soaps; 

 for complete saponification heat is required, and solid potash 

 acts bettor than solution. 



very 



The fluid oleic acid obtained by Bouis may doubtless be 



