21 G LEGUJVIINOS^. 



In 1876 the import was 64,215 tons, valued at £415,857. The 

 largest quantity is supplied by the British West India Islands. Ham- 

 burg also imports annually about 20,000 tons of logwood. 



Uses — Logwood in the form of decoction is occasionally administered 

 in chronic diarrhoea, and especially in the diarrhoea of children. Cases 

 have occurred in which its use has been followed by phlebitis. Its 

 employment in the art of dyeing is far more important. 



Adulteration — The woods of several species of CcBsalpinia imported 

 under the name of Brazil Wood and used for dyeing red, bear an 

 external resemblance to logwood, with which it is said they are some- 

 times mixed in the form of chips. They contain a crystallizable colour- 

 ing principle called Brasilin, C'^H'''0^, or, according to Liebermann and 

 Burg (1876), C'lI^O', which affords with alkalis red and not bluish 

 or purplish solutions, and yields trinitrophenol, C®H^(NO')^OH (picric 

 acid), when boiled with nitric acid, while hgematoxylin yields oxalic 

 acid only. The best source for brasilin is the wood of Ccesalpinia 

 Sappan L., a tree of the East Indies, well known as Bakam, Brazil 

 Wood, Lignum Brasile, Verzino of the Italians, an important object of 

 commerce during the middle ages.^ 



FOLIA SENN.^. 



Senna Leaves ; F. Feuilles de Sene ; G. Sennesbldtter. 



Botanical Origin — The Senna Leaves of commerce are afforded 

 by two species of Cassia' belonging to that section of the genus which 

 is distinguished by having leaves without glands, axillary racemes 

 elongating as inflorescence advances, membranaceous bracts which in 

 the young raceme conceal the flower buds but drop off" during flower- 

 ing, and a short, broad, flat legume. 



The senna plants are low perennial bush 3- shrubs, 2 to 4 feet high, 

 having pari-pinnate leaves with leaflets unequal at the base, and 3'ellow 

 flowers. The pods contain 6 or more seeds in each, suspended on alter- 

 nate valves by long capillary funicles. These run towards the pointed 

 end of the seed, but are curved at their attachment to the hilum just 

 below. The seeds are compressed and of an obovate-cuneate or oblong 

 form, beaked at the narrower end.^ 



The species in question are the following : — 



1. Cassia acutifolia Delile* — a shrub about 2 feet high, with pale 

 subterate or obtusely angled, erect or ascending branches, occasionally 

 slightly zigzag above, glabrous at least below. Leaves usually 4-5-jugate ; 

 leaflets oval or lanceolate, acute, mucronate, usually more or less distinctly 



^ See Yule, Marco Polo, ii. (1874). 369. of the recent Bevision of the Genus Cassia 

 2 Some writers have removed these plants by Bentham (Linn. Trans., xxvii. 1871. 

 from Cassia to a separate genus named 503) and of the labours of Oliver on the 

 Senna, but such subdivision is repudiated same subject in his Flora of Ti'opical 

 by the principal botanists. The intricate Africa, ii. (1871)268-282. 

 S)Tionymy of the senna plants has been well ' On the structure of the seed, see Batka, 

 worked out by J. B. Batka in his memoir Pharm. Journ. ix. (1850) 30. 

 entitled Monographic der Cassien-Grappe * Synonyms — C. Senna /3. Linn.; C. Ian- 

 Senna (Prag, 1866), of which we have made ceolata Nectoux ; C. lenitiva Bisch.; Senna 

 free use. AVe have also had the advantage acutifolia Batka. 



