708 SMILACE^. 



still more as they advance. In Guatemala sarsaparilla, which is con- 

 sidered a very mealy sort, it is easy to perceive that the bark is hardly 

 amylaceous in the vicinity of the rhizome, but that it acquires an 

 enormous deposit of fecula as it proceeds in its growth. 



Sarsaparilla varies greatly in the abundance of rootlets, technically 

 called heard, with which the roots are clothed. This character depends 

 partly on natural circumstances, and partly on the practice of the 

 collectors who remove or retain the rootlets at will. Dr. Rhys of 

 Belize has stated that the proportion of rootlets depends much on the 

 nature of the soil, their development being most favoured by moist 

 situations. 



Dry sarsaparilla has not much smell, yet when large quantities are 

 boiled, or when a decoction is evaporated, a peculiar and very per- 

 ceptible odour is emitted. The taste of the root is earthy, and not well 

 marked, and even a decoction has no very distinctive flavour. 



Microscopic Structure ^ — On a tranverse section of the root, its 

 fibro-vascular bundles are seen to be restricted to the central part, 

 being all enclosed by a brown ring. Within this ring the bundles are 

 densely packed so as to form a ligneous zone. The very centre of the 

 section consists of white medullary tissue, through which sometimes a 

 certain number of fibro-vascular bundles are scattered. A similar 

 medullary parenchyme is met with between the brown ring or nucleus 

 sheath or the epidermis. On a longitudinal section the latter exhibits 

 several rows of elongated cells, having their outer brown walls 

 thickened by secondary deposits. The brown nucleus sheath, on the 

 other hand, consists of only one row of prismatic cells, their inner 

 and lateral walls alone having secondary deposits. The vascular 

 bundles contain large scalariform vessels and lignified prosenchymatous 

 cells. 



The parenchymatous cells, if not devoid of solid contents, are 

 loaded with large compound starch granules ; some cells also exhibit 

 bundles of acicular crystals of calcium oxalate. In non-mealy 

 sarsaparilla the vessels and ligneous cells sometimes contain a yellow 

 resin. 



The various sorts of sarsaparilla differ, not only in being mealy or 

 non-mealy, but also as regards the thickness of the ligneous zone, 

 which in some of them is many times thinner than the diameter of the 

 central medullary tissue. In other kinds this diameter is very much 

 smaller. Yet the nucleus sheath aflbrds still better means for 

 distinguishing the sorts of this drug, if we examine its single cells 

 in a transverse section. The outline of such a cell may be of a 

 square or somewhat rounded shape, or it may be more or less extended. 

 In this case it may be extended in the direction of a radius, or in 

 the direction of a tangent. The secondary deposits may vary in 

 thickness. 



Sorts of Sarsaparilla — In the present state of our knowledge no 

 botanical classification of the different kinds of sarsaparilla being 

 possible, we shall resort to the arrangement adopted by Pereira and 



^ For more particulars consult Vandercolme, Ilisloire hot. el tMrapeut. des Sahepareilles, 

 Paris, 1870, 127 pp., 3 plates ; and Otten, in Dragendorffs Jahresbericht, 1876. 74. 



