BLOOD ROOT 275 



except in the basal portions, which are frequently strongly pubescent. 

 Leaves thin, more or less crumpled, and when entire pinnately 

 divided, the segments being elliptical or ovate and either deeply 

 crenate or lobed; upper surface dark olive-green, lower surface 

 greenish-gray, glaucous and sparingly pubescent; petioles from 2 to 

 10 cm. in length, more or less pubescent. Flowers yellowish brown 

 (when fresh orange-yellow), occurring in axillary umbels, consisting 

 of 4 to 9 pedunculate flowers; sepals 2, occurring only in the buds 

 petals 4, the lobes being rounded; stamens numerous; ovary with 



2 placentae and a 2-lobed sigma; fruit a dry unilocular pod, cylin- 

 drical, tapering at the summit and tipped with the persistent stigma, 

 from 12 to 35 mm. in length and 1 to 2 mm. in thickness, and con- 

 taining numerous seeds which are usually arranged in 2 rows. Seeds 

 spheroidal, ovoid, or ellipsoidal, about 1 mm. in diameter, dark 

 brown and nearly smooth. 



Powder. Light green; aqueous solutions of a golden yellow 

 color; seeds composed of nearly cubical thin-walled cells; non- 

 glandular hairs, uniseriate, composed of 6 to 8 long cylindrical cells, 

 some of which are collapsed and somewhat enlarged or swollen at 

 their dividing walls; fragments of leaves with spiral tracheae, and 

 latex tubes with light yellowish contents; elliptical or spherical sto- 

 mata on lower surface only, walls rather indistinct; pollen grains 

 spheroidal, about 0.025 mm. in diameter, nearly smooth, and having 



3 pores; fragments of petals with distinctly yellowish fibrovascular 

 bundles. Starch grains and calcium oxalate crystals are wanting. 



Constituents. From 5 to 7 alkaloids : Chelidonine (stylophorine) 

 0.03 per cent, in colorless monoclinic prisms; chelerythrine, which 

 is fluorescent; a-, /3-, and 7-rhomochelidonine and protopine. These 

 several alkaloids are combined with the following acids: chelidonic, 

 malic, citric and tartaric. It also contains chelidoxanthin, a bitter 

 neutral principle, possessing a yellow color and resembling berberine; 

 and a small quantity of a volatile oil. Another alkaloid, chelilysime, 

 is said to disappear in the drying of the drug. 



Literature. Schmidt, Arch. d. Pharm., 1886, p. 531; Ibid., 

 1893, p. 136; Wintgen, Ibid., 1901, p. 438. 



SANGUINARIA. Bloodroot. The rhizome of Sanguinaria cana- 

 densis (Fam. Papaveracese), a perennial herb indigenous to the eastern 

 and central United States and Canada. The rhizome should be 

 collected in July or August and dried. 



Description. Horizontal, irregularly cylindrical, flattened, some- 

 times branched, 2.5 to 6 cm. in length, 5 to 10 mm. in diameter; 

 externally dark brown, slightly annulate, with few buds or stem- 



