268 



NOTES ON CHINESE MATEKIA MEDICA. 



Pachyma 

 Cocoa. 



1860-62. Root (Smilax\ a supposition which their outward appearance 

 certainly favours, but which is immediately negatived when we 

 find them to contain no trace of starch. Loureiro and End- 

 licher are content to describe them as tubers found upon the 

 roots of fir-trees. Other botanists have placed them among 

 Fungi; Gronovius and Walter in the genus Lycoperdon, 

 Schweinitz in Sclerotiumfiken, Horaninow, and Fries in Pachyma. 1 

 The latest observations on the subject are some which were sub- 

 mitted to the Linnean Society by Mr. F. Currey and myself, 

 and published in the Linnean Transactions. 2 The opinion 

 there expressed is that these tuber-like bodies are an altered state 

 of the root of the tree, probably occasioned by the presence of 

 a fungus, the mycelium of which traverses, disintegrates, or even 

 obliterates, the wood and bark. This mycelium appears under 

 the microscope in the form of fine threads, usually more or less 

 mixed with bodies of irregular shape, somewhat resembling starch- 

 granules, but which are, apparently, cells of the woody tissue 

 in a more or less advanced state of disease and distortion. 

 Nothing is known of the more "developed form of the fungus 

 represented by this mycelium. 



The American Fuh-ling has been examined chemically by 

 Professor Ellett, of South Carolina College, who has stated it to 

 consist entirely of pure pectine of Braconnot ; 3 but I think its 

 composition deserves some further investigation. I find that 

 the pure-white internal substance (which is quite insipid and 

 inodorous) is very slightly soluble in cold rectified spirit and 

 in cold water, and not more so when boiled in water, the solu- 

 tion in each case yielding a flocculent precipitate with acetate 

 of lead. When boiled in a weak solution of carbonate of 

 soda, the substance dissolves rather more freely, and the 

 solution affords a scanty gelatinous precipitate (pectic acid?) 



American 

 Ftih-ling. 



1 Also Du Halde'a Descrip. de la Chine, 1735, iii., 522. 



2 Vol. xxiii. p. 94, where the reader will find full references to the botanical 

 works here referred to, as well as fibres of Pachyma Cocos, Fries. See also 

 Berkeley On some Tuberiform Productions from China, Journ. of Proceed- 

 ings of Linn. Soc., vol. iii., Botany, p. 102, where there is a translation from 

 the Chinese regarding these substances. 



3 Berkeley, I.e. p. 106. 



