714 GRAMINE^. 



have endeavoured to obtain from it Parillin, the crystalline principle 

 of sarsaparilla, but without success. 



Commerce — China root is imported into Europe from the South of 

 China — usually from Canton. The quantity shipped from that port in 

 1872, was only 384 peculs (51,200 lb.) ; while the same year there was 

 shipped from Hankow, the great trading city of the Yangtsze, no less 

 than 10,258 peculs (1,867,733 lb.), all to Chinese ports. For the year 

 1874, these figures were: Hankow 9393 peculs, valued at 53,194 taels 

 (one tael about 5s. lOcZ.), Kewkiang 3G27 peculs, Ningpo 2905 peculs,^ 

 and for 1877 Hankow 12,075 peculs, Kewkiang 3942 peculs. 



Uses — Notwithstanding the high opinion formerly entertained of 

 the virtues of China root, it has in England fallen into complete disuse. 

 In China and India it is still held in great esteem for the relief of 

 rheumatic and syphilitic complaints, and as an aphrodisiac and demul- 

 cent. Polak asserts that the tubers of Sjiiilax are consumed as food 

 by Turcomans and Mongols.^ 



Substitutes — Several American species of Srailax furnish a nearly 

 allied drug, which at various times has been brought into commerce as 

 Radix Chinee occidentalis. It was already known to the authors of 

 the 16th century; we met with it in 1872, and before, in the London 

 market, as an importation from Puntas Arenas, the port of Costa Rica 

 on the Pacific coast. 



Of the exact species it is difiicult to speak with certainty : but 

 S. Pseudo-China L. and 8. tamnoides L. growing in the United States 

 from New Jersey southwards ; S. Balbisiana Knth., a plant common 

 in all the West Indian Islands ; and S. Japicanga Griseb., S. syringoides 

 Griseb. and S. Brasiliensis Spreng., are reputed to afibrd large tuberous 

 rhizomes which in their several localities replace the China root of Asia, 

 and are employed in a similar manner.^ 



GRAMINE^. 



SACCHARUM. 



Sugar, Cane Sugar, Sucrose ; F. Sucre, Sucre de canne ; G. Zucker, 



Rohrzucker. 



Botanical Origin — Saccharum officinarum L., the Sugar Cane. 

 The jointed stem is from 6 to 12 feet high, solid, hard, dense, internally 

 juicy, and hollow only in the flowering tops. Several varieties are cul- 

 tivated, as the Country/ Cane, the original form of the species ; the Rib- 

 bon Cane, with purple or yellow stripes along the stem ; the Bourbon 

 or Tahiti Cane, a more elongated, stronger, more hairy and very pro- 



^ Returns of Trade at the Treaty Forts in second Fuh-ling or Pe-fiih-ling. — See Han- 



Chinafor 1872, pp. 34, 154, and the same bury, Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 421; and 



for 1874. Science Papers,202. 267.— F. Porter Smith, 



^ See p. 324, note 2. — ^We quote this state- Mat. Med. and Nat. Hist, of China, 1871. 



ment with reserve, knowing that both 198; Dragendorff, Volksmedicin Turkestan'< 



Chinese and Europeans sometimes confound in Buchner's liepertoriurn , xxii. (1873) 13.J. 



China root with the singular fungoid pro- ^ De CandoUe's monograph, quoted at p. 



duction termed Pacliyma Cocoa. The first 705, note 4, may be consulted on the above 



is called in Chinese Tii-fuh-lin(/,— the species. 



