98 SCIENTIFIC AND APPLIED PHARMACOGNOSY 



Constituents. A bitter, somewhat crystalline glucoside, conval- 

 lamarin, about 0.6 per cent, which is soluble in water, alcohol and 

 ether and has a physiological action similar to digitalin. An acrid 

 glucoside, convallarin, forming rectangular prisms which are insoluble 

 in ether and sparingly soluble in water, the solution foaming on 

 shaking like a saponin solution. 



CONVALLARIN FLORES. Lily of the Valley Flowers. The 

 racemes of Convallaria majalis (Fam. Liliacese). The white or pinkish 

 flowers are arranged in racemes upon scapes and are among the most 

 fragrant and beautiful of all flowers. For use in medicine they are 

 gathered in the spring and early summer from wild plants and care- 

 fully dried. On drying they turn brown in color but are easily 

 distinguished by their bell-shaped, 6-parted perianths, the segments 

 of which are recurved. Inside of this occur 6 stamens, the anthers of 

 which are introrse and longer than the filaments. The ovary is 

 3-locular and tapers into a 3-grooved, stout style, having at the*sum- 

 mit a triangular stigma. The odor is fragrant and the taste sweetish 

 and acrid. 



The flowering scape is distinctly 2-winged, smooth and glabrous. 

 In transverse section it shows 2 circles of collateral mestome strands, 

 those situated at the periphery having a rudimentary cambial strata 

 between the leptome and the tracheae, a structure very seldom occur- 

 ing in monocotyledonous plants. 



The powdered drug is yellowish-brown and shows numerous 

 smooth, ellipsoidal pollen grains and fragments with raphides of 

 calcium oxalate varying from 0.010 to 0.040 mm. in length. Frag- 

 ments of perianth with elliptical stomata, also broken lobes of the 

 anthers are quite common. The tracheae of the scapes possess either 

 simple pores or reticulate thickenings, and are associated with a 

 few sclerenchymatous fibers having thin, lignified and porous 

 walls. 



The flowers contain a volatile crystalline principle which is 

 fragrant even in dilute solutions. The other constituents on which 

 the activity of the drug depends probably resemble those found in 

 the rhizome. 



Literature Holm, Merck's Report, 1910, p. 160. 



ALETRIS. Unicorn Root, True Unicorn Root, Colic Root or 

 Ague Root. The rhizome and roots of Aletris farinosa (Fam. Lili- 

 aceae), a perennial herb with spreading lanceolate leaves crowded at 

 the base and a long slender scape terminated by a raceme of small, 

 white, tubular flowers (for illustration of flowering plant consult 

 Kraemer's "Applied and Economic Botany," p. 490. It is common 



