STAR ANISE 87 



the Indian and occasionally to the London market. As they are toxic 

 they must be carefully distinguished from the Chinese. The following 

 characters will suffice : The fruits are less regularly developed, the 

 carpels usually more wrinkled, the beak more acute and commonly 

 directed upwards ; the ventral suture is usually more open, and the 

 peduncle, to which the carpels seldom remain attached, is straight. 

 The Japanese fruits have a balsamic, not anise-like odour, and a 

 disagreeable, bitterish taste ; the taste and odour are the best char- 

 acters by which to distinguish the genuine from the false, as they can 

 be applied to fragments only of the fruit. 



From the seeds of Japanese star anise fruit Eykmann (1881) obtained 52 per 

 cent, of fixed oil and a poisonous crystalline principle, sikimin, soluble in hot 

 water, alcohol, and chloroform ; the leaves and fruits yielded volatile oil, sikimic 

 (schikimic) acid, and sikimipicrin. 



Uses. The oil is employed as a carminative and as a flavouring 

 agent, especially in cough mixtures, as it is supposed to possess a 

 special action on the bronchial mucous surfaces. 



COCCULUS INDICUS 



(Levant Berries, Fishberries, Fructus Cocculi) 



Source, &c. The fruits commonly known as Cocculus indicus are 

 produced by Anamirta paniculata, Colebrooke (N.O. Menispermacece), 

 a tall, woody, climbing shrub indigenous to Eastern India and the 

 Malay Archipelago. They derive the name of Levant berries, by 

 which they are sometimes known, from the fact of their having been 

 formerly brought from India by way ,of Alexandria and the ports of 

 the Levant. 



The plant produces a pendulous panicle of flowers ; the ovaries of 

 the pistillate flowers are apocarpus, each carpel being gibbous and 

 developing into a drupaceous fruit containing a single seed. The 

 fruits are collected when ripe, and dried ; they are exported chiefly 

 from Bombay and Madras. 



Description. Cocculus indicus of commerce consists of small dark 

 brown or nearly black fruits, about 12 mm. in length. They are more 

 or less distinctly reniform in shape, one side being flattened or even 

 slightly concave, whilst the other is boldly arched. On the former the 

 small scar left by the stalk can usually be distinguished, and near it 

 is a minute prominence, the apex of the fruit. The gibbous dorsal 

 surface of the carpel from which the fruit is formed develops much 

 more rapidly than the ventral, and the apex of the fruit thus remains 

 near to the base, the dorsal surface becoming conspicuously arched. 

 The pericarp is rough and finely wrinkled, and although thin is hard 



