ES 
THE CHEMISTRY OF SOME COMMON PLANTS. 
J (ANA AMID (EAA 6 | GEIe Diss 
Patterdale, Westmorland. 
Common Orcuis (Orchis mascula).—This plant varies consider- 
ably in stature, colouration and scent, but it is certainly a 
highly remarkable native or denizen of cold, elevated and moist 
localities. As might be anticipated, its chemistry presents 
some rather remarkable features. On zoth June the overground 
parts yielded only 1.7 per cent. in dry of wax, with some fat-oil 
and a mere trace of carotin; the alcoholic extract contained a 
kind of tannin (or rather a resinous glucoside), which does not 
precipitate gelatine, and with iron salts gives a brownish-green 
colouration, it precipitates bromine water, and yields a decom- 
position product resembling a phlobophene when boiled with 
dilute HCl; there was no tanoid, but some resin which dissolved 
in sulphuric acid with a brown colour passing to a splendid 
violet ; there was much sugar, mucilage, and oxalate of calcium, 
but no soluble proteid or starch ; the ash amounted to 6.5 per 
cent., and yielded 47.3 per cent. soluble salts, 5.1 silica, 20.5 
lime, 3.8 magnesia, 7.8 P20°%, 3.8 SO3, and 7.8 chlorine. It is 
evident from the foregoing analysis that the special feature of 
the plant is the great richness in carbohydrates and the organic 
acids produced thereby, the oxidation proceeding much further 
than in the case of the Parsley Fern, while the large amount of 
water in the tissues favours and makes the persist the phenomena 
of the dissolving power of the ferments (diastases) on the starch 
or other carbohydrates originally produced. Volatile oils and 
resin are the chief products of deassimilation. The root-knobs, 
which in this species are undivided, contain, according to De 
Dombasle, a volatile oil and a pungent bitter principle, and 
according to Robiquet have no starch. Another author asserts 
that in the autumn the old bulbs contain no starch and the 
young bulbs have very much starch, whereas during the 
flowering time it is absent in both. In July I found that the old 
bulbs had much starch, but there was none in the new organs, 
and there was no tanuin, but much gummy matter (mannan) not 
precipitated by peracetate of mercury and not coloured by 
iodine. 
Boc AsPHODEL (Warthecium ossifragum).—Bogegy heaths and 
spongy bogs, the swampy and marshy areas of wild moorlands 
are the habitats of the elegant golden spires, stiffish stems, and 
1907 April 1. 
