244 



BARKS 



the only other indigenous species, by the entire leaves, hermaphrodite 

 flowers with five stamens, absence of thorns, and tree-like habit. 



The bark is stripped from the stem and branches, the wood of 

 which was formerly valued for making charcoal for gunpowder. 

 When fresh it has an unpleasant odour and taste, and acts as an 

 emetic, but these properties are lost when the bark is dried and kept : 

 alder buckthorn bark should not therefore be employed medicinally 

 until it has been kept for at least a year. 



FIG. 124. Alder Buckthorn bark. A, young, B, 

 older bark.. Natural size. 



Description. The commercial drug occurs in single or double 

 quills varying from 0-5 to 4 cm. in diameter and commonly 15 cm. or 

 more in length. Young bark is usually extremely thin and has a 

 smooth, glossy, dark purplish exterior marked with small, circular 

 or transversely elongated, whitish lenticels. The cork frequently 

 exfoliates, or at least easily separates, disclosing a yellowish brown 

 cortex, but the inner part of the cork is of a dark crimson colour 

 easily seen by gently scraping off the outer cork cells. The inner 

 surface is dark cinnamon-brown in colour and nearly smooth, exhibiting 

 under the lens fine longitudinal striations. The fracture is short in 

 the outer, but rather fibrous in the inner part, groups of bast fibres 

 projecting a short distance beyond the fractured surface. 



