322 SUBTERRANEAN ORGANS 



1 cm. in diameter, and some of them bear a depressed scar left by the 

 aerial stem after it has perished. Most of the pieces bear numerous 

 short bristly fibres arranged in encircling lines, or at least show the 

 scars of such ; these fibres are the remains of the fibro- vascular bundles 

 of leaves that have perished, and prove that most of the commercial 

 drug consists of rhizome, not root. All the pieces exhibit regular 

 transverse wrinkles and are covered with a thin but tough cork, 

 which often shows a disposition to exfoliate, or at least can easily be 

 stripped off. 



Internally the drug is whitish or yellowish, spongy and irregularly 

 fibrous, exhibiting numerous fissures which have possibly originated 



FIG. 164. Sumbul root. Slightly reduced. (Phar- 

 maceutical Journal.) 



during the process of drying, and more or less abundant soft resin to 

 which dust, &c., rapidly adheres. The transverse section of a small 

 rhizome shows a pale bark, within which is a ring of narrow, finely 

 porous yellow wood-bundles; the central portion is parenchymatous 

 tissue through which vascular bundles pass in varying directions, a 

 peculiarity that is exhibited by many rhizomes, and to which in this 

 case the fibrous nature of the drug is due. In the larger pieces the 

 structure is usually less distinct. The drug has an agreeable musky 

 odour and a bitter, slightly aromatic taste. 

 The student should observe 



(a) The transverse wrinkles, from which short fibres proceed, 



(b) The whitish, fibrous and spongy interior, 



(c) The musky odour. 



Constituents. Of the constituents of the sumbul root of 

 commerce very little is known. Hahn (1896) found it to yield to 



