8. Oil of Lawsonia alba, Lamk. 
By Davip Hooper. 
Lawsonia alba, Lamk., oe henna plant a Mareone Asia, is 
known as mehndi throt ighou t India, where s found wild or 
cultivated. The most impor ver use of Sane is as an article of 
the toilet, the leaves being a for staining the nails, hands 
and Sie and for dyeing the 
n Sir George Watt's “ Cientihe of Economic Products” it 
is viabed that the seeds yield an oil of which little is known. 
Since the oil is not referred to in ‘Dr. M. C. Cooke’s “ Oils and oil- 
seeds of India,” or any more recent work, efforts have been made 
by the Reporter on Economic Products to obtain a supply of the 
seeds for examination. Last year the Superintendent, Govern 
ment Botanical Gardens, Saharanpur, forwarded a few pounds of 
the seeds, and they were analysed in the Industrial Section of 
the Indian Museum 
The seeds are contained in a capsule of the size of a pepper- 
corn, and consist of angular grains of a cinnamon-brown colour, 
with no pronounced taste or smell, and 1°5 to 2 millimetres long, 
One hundred seeds weighed only 0°073 gram or 1°126 grains 
They were found on analysis to contain the following prin- 
ciples :— 
Moisture is it Are 
Oil (by ether) <i Ne eee 
Albuminoids ai a a 
Carbohydrates sti si ... 83°62 
Fibre on ied dirs sve SOD 
Ash oh ne as ee 
100:00 
These seeds are, therefore, not true oil-seeds, afd would 
yield nothing to pressure in a mill. They were dry and fibrous 
in character, contained some tannic acid, and would be considered 
ically. 
The oil was thick, dark-green in colour, and slowly oxidised 
25 
toa solid jelly. It solidified at 25°3° C., and had a slight acid 
The iodi 
of the fatty acids 127°45. The oil, except for its green colour, is 
similar in nature to poppy-seed oil, but can never be expected to 
rank among aaneaaial fixed oils. 
