ON THE OCCURRENCE OF SOLID HYDROCAR- 

 BONS IN PLANTS 1 



A CONTRIBUTION FROM THE CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE PHILADEL- 

 PHIA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY 



[At a stated meeting of the American Philosophical Society, 

 Philadelphia, March 16, 1888, Miss Helen C. De S. Abbott 

 made the following remarks on the Occurrence of a Series of 

 New Crystalline Compounds in Higher Plants. 



"In many plants, especially those which belong to the natu- 

 ral orders Simarubacese, Polemoniaceae, Rubiaceae, Ebenaceae, 

 Rhodoraceae, and Compositae occur, respectively, a class of com- 

 pounds which present definite crystalline forms. They are ex- 

 tracted from the plants most readily by a light petroleum- ether. 

 Boiling absolute alcohol was used to purify these compounds 

 from fats, wax, and coloring-matter, and by fractional crystalli- 

 zation three distinct forms of crystals were obtained which in 

 ultimate analysis represented compounds of different chemical 

 constitution. 



"These bodies are characterized by containing a high per- 

 centage of carbon. They are indifferent to alkalies and have 

 high melting-points. The discovery of one of these compounds 

 in Cascara amarga was made by me in 1884, and announced 

 at the Buffalo Meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. Since that time my investigations are 

 continuing, and from those studies I am able to announce, as 

 derived from plant sources, compounds which until now have 

 not been observed. Lately, from independent investigations, 

 Professor Henry Trimble has also discovered similar com- 



1 Printed in the American Journal of Chemistry, Philadelphia, July, 1888. 

 Noticed in American Chemical Journal, vol. x, p. 439; also in Berichte d. 

 Deutschen Chem, Ges., vol. xx, p. 202. In this investigation and report Mr. 

 Trimble was associated with Miss Abbott. 



