156 ROYAL SALEP. 



less. longitudinally, besides which there is mostly one broad and deep 

 furrow running in the same direction. They are usually trans- 

 lucent, transmitted light showing them to be of an orange- 

 brown ; by reflected light they are seen to vary from a yellowish 

 brown to a deep purplish hue sometimes shaded at the base 

 into an opaque yellowish white. 



Salep Bulbs. In substance the bulbs are dense and horny : they may be cut 

 with a knife, but can hardly be powdered. After several hours' 

 maceration in water, they become soft, opaque, and of a slaty or 

 purplish hue, and increase greatly in volume, regaining in fact 

 their natural size and form (see Fig. 3). If in this state a bulb 



FIG. 1. FIG. 2. 



Royal Salep, natural size. 



be cut longitudinally into two equal portions its distinctness 

 from an orchis tuber will be at once manifest. Instead of the 

 homogeneous, fleshy mass of the latter, we find a single fleshy 

 envelope or scale of excessive thickness whose edges overlap 

 each other ; this scale surrounding an elongated, flattened bud 



(Kg- 4). 



Although this single convolute scale is all that remains in the 

 dried bulb, it is supposed by Dr. Lindley that other scales ex- 

 ternal to it have been stripped off previous to drying. 

 Botanical Of the plant affording Royal Salep, and of its place of growth, 

 " 1 ]? of nothing appears to be known. I have not been able to discover 

 any notice of the drug in the works of Ksempfer, Forskal, Ainslie, 



