[ 289 J 
XLV. Discovery of a new Vegetable Principle in Asparagus 
(Asparagus sativus of Lizmneus). By M. VavauEvin*. 
Ox examining the products of the vegetable kingdom more 
attentively than was formerly the custom, modern chemists 
have distinguished a great number of products unknown to 
the antients ; but for a long time no immediate principle has 
been found in any vegetable so singular and interesting as 
that which we are about to mention. 
Last summer M. Robiquet, a young chemist who joins 
to a solidity of reasoning the greatest accuracy in’ making 
experiments, by desire of M. Parmentier submitted the juice 
of asparagus to the chemical analysis, of which he has given 
the results in the Annales de Chimie t. 
During a journey I lately took to the country, having left 
in my laboratory a certain quantity of the juice of asparagus 
concentrated by evaporation, I observed in it a great variety 
of crystals, two of which varieties appeared to belong to new 
substances: as they had a different form, transparency, and 
tastc, it was easy to separate them. 
The one of these species, perfectly white and transparent 
when it had crystallized several times, has a fresh taste, a 
little nauseous, exciting the secretion of the saliva: it is 
hard, brittle, and has a regular form. 
The other species, although equally white, is not so trans- 
parent nor so hard, nor is it crystallized in the same form ; 
on the contrary, it is without consistency, crystallized in 
fine needles, having a perceptible saccharine taste, and ana- 
ogous to that of manna. ; 
M. Robiquet, on making the experiments anda men- 
tioned, had perceived the former of these substances ; but 
he thought it was an ammoniacal salt ; because at that time, 
having only obtained a very small quantity and imperfectly 
purified, it retained, to all appearance, among its flakes some 
traces of a salt with a base of ammonia, with which the juice 
of asparagus abounds ; and this circumstance deceived him. 
* From Annates de Chimie, tom. lvii. p. 18. 
4 See the present volume, pages $3 and 115. — 
Vol. 26. No, 104, Jan. 1807. T Since 
