206 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



I undertook the analysis of this bark at the request of Messrs. 

 Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit, Michigan, who furnished 

 me with a liberal supply of the drug. The coloring prin- 

 ciple exists in the bark in two or more conditions, as haema- 

 toxylin and as oxidized products. The former was separated 

 as yellow crystals, analogous in form to haematoxylin crystals 

 from the true logwood. The alcoholic extract of the bark con- 

 tained about eighteen per cent, of a red-colored substance 

 which agreed in color and dye tests with like constituents 

 found in logwood. Mordanted cotton fabric was dyed with 

 haematoxylin from Saraca bark, and presented the charac- 

 teristic logwood dye colors. 



The extracts of Saraca indica bark containing its coloring 

 principle were tested with various reagents, 1 and it was ob- 

 served that the reactions agreed with haematoxylin colors, 

 and in no case with those of brazilin. 



The bark of the commercial logwood tree is not used for 

 extracting the dye, the wood of the tree being employed for 

 this purpose. I determined the presence of a small quantity 

 of haematoxylin in the logwood bark, and obtained with its 

 extracts the same reaction without alkalies and other reagents 

 as with the other wood extracts. But owing to the smaller 

 percentage of dye in the bark of the specimens examined, 

 the colors were less intense. In the case of the Saraca indica 

 bark, the colors were very brilliant, and certainly indicated 

 the presence of a large proportion of coloring-matter in it. 

 It would be of interest to secure specimens of the wood of 

 Saraca, in order to determine if it contains the coloring 

 principle, and should this be so, if it exists in sufficiently large 

 quantities to warrant its introduction as a new source of this 

 commercial product. 



Last summer 2 I extracted from a Honduras plant, called 

 " chichipate," a yellow dye. It yielded with mordanted wool 

 fabrics, colors somewhat resembling those yielded by fustic 



1 S. P. Sadtler and W. L. Rowland, Amer. Jour. Pharm., February, 

 1881. 



2 "Preliminary Analysis of a Honduras Plant, named ' Chichipate.' " 

 Paper read before the A. A. A. S , at Buffalo, August, 1886. 



