TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING. 43 



made. I shall not give the result of each analysis here, as it would be going 

 beyond the limits of this paper, but I wish to call attention to a peculiar fact 

 which was observed during this investigation; I have found, to my surprise, 

 that different roots collected in the same month may vary immensely in 

 composition. My attention was called to this fact in this way: In the course 

 of this work it became necessary for me to use a root collected in June of the 

 two years 1892 and 1893. The quantity collected of the former having been 

 insufficient for the analysis, the root of 1893 was necessary for the completion 

 of the work. The root of the first year had been collected and dried for me 

 in the sun, and the root of this year was collected, washed, chopped fine and 

 dried in thin layers in a hot-air oven at a temperature of 60 degrees C. The 

 former had been collected from low, and the latter from very high ground. 

 The following table shows the difference in the composition of the two speci- 

 mens: 



Roots collected in 1S1)2 1893 



Moisture (in the dry root) 9.79 9.48 



Taraxacin (in the dry root) 612 .720 



Inulin (in the dry root) 9.34 4.83 



Reducing sugars (in the dry root) 12.50 2.60 



Levulin (in the dry root) 1.728 16.00 



