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SCIENTIFIC AND APPLIED PHARMACOGNOSY 



few fibrovascular bundles and numerous parenchyma cells containing 

 an oily cytoplasm, small aleurone grains and occasionally a small 

 amount of strophanthin. 



Powder. (Fig. 235.) Grayish-brown; consisting chiefly of 

 thin-walled parenchyma cells and fragments of long, thin-walled 

 hairs; mounts made with solutions -of potassium hydrate or hydrated 

 chloral show numerous oil globules; many of the fragments of the 

 endosperm are colored greenish upon the addition of sulphuric acid; 



FIG. 235. Strophanthus : H, fragments of upper portion of non-glandular hairs; 

 L, basal portion of non-glandular hairs; E, cells of endosperm with aleurone 

 grains (A) and starch grains (S); P, parenchyma of cotyledons with aleurone 

 grains; T, tracheae; C, collapsed cells of seed-coat; A, aleurone grams; 

 0, parenchyma containing oil globules. 



neither crystals of calcium oxalate nor stone cells are present; starch 

 grains occasional, ellipsoidal, about 0.004 mm. in diameter. 



Constituents. Strophanthin, a crystalline glucoside occurring 

 chiefly in the endosperm and varying from 0.95 to 3 per cent; stro- 

 phanthin is colored greenish with sulphuric acid, and yields on 

 hydrolysis, glucose and a crystalline body, strophanthidin ; the other 

 constituents are kombic acid and about 30 per cent of a fixed oil. 



Another principle, pseudo-strophanthin, has been isolated from 

 the seeds of some undetermined species of Strophanthus. This 



