442 BROOKS. 



BEBBERINE. 



Several plants which yield berberine are used throughout the Indo- 

 Malay region for dyeing yellow. In the Philippines, Archangelisia lem- 

 niscata Becc., (albutra, Tagalog) and Malwnia nepalensis DC. (conig, 

 Ilocano) are employed for this purpose. Toddalia aculeataTers., (danag, 

 Tagalog,) is used in India as a source of yellow dye and on investigating 

 it, A. G. Perkin 9 found the yellow coloring matter to be the alkaloid 

 berberine. This plant is common in the Philippines, but so far as is 

 known it is not used as a dye by the people. Cloth colored with berberine 

 does not show as bright a yellow as that dyed with turmeric, but the dye 

 is much less changed by light. 



The presence of berberine in the two Philippine species Archangelisia 

 lemniscata Becc. and Mahomia nepalensis DC, was shown by pre- 

 cipitating the characteristic brown periodide, by forming the acetone 

 compound, and by th'e color reaction with chlorine water. 



CARTHAMIN. 



The Filipinos cultivate the safflower, Carthamus tinctorius L., (kat- 

 sumba, Tagalog,) and use it to a small extent for dyeing yellow and red 

 shades. It contains two coloring matters, carthamin C 15 H 14 7 , 10 a red 

 dye, and a yellow coloring matter about which "little is known. The 

 flowers are sometimes fraudulently mixed with saffron, or crocus. 



TURMERIC. 



One of the best known natural coloring matters is turmeric, a yellow 

 dye obtained from the rhizomes of the species Curcuma long a L., (dilao, 

 Tagalog.) It is used in dyeing silk and rarely for coloring butter. It is 

 a constituent of Indian curry and is used by the Filipinos in staining 

 mats and in coloring certain food preparations. It is sometimes employed 

 in dyeing paper pulp, but its extremely fugitive character renders its use 

 in this connection objectionable. The employment of turmeric as a 

 reagent for boric acid is well known. 



Turmeric is not exported from the Philippines at the present time. 

 The value of the importations into the United States in 1907 was 26,252 

 dollars, the greater part being from Burma. 



Jackson and Clarke u have recently published several papers on the constitu- 

 tion of eurcumin, the yellow dye of turmeric, and for this reason further 

 investigation of it was not undertaken. The plant is said to contain very small 

 quantities of an alkaloid 12 but it has never been studied thoroughly. 



°Journ. Soc. Chem.. Ind. (1895), 14, 476. 



10 A. G. Perkin and T. Kametaka. Proe. Chem. Soc, London (1909), 25, 223. 

 n Ber. d. deutschen chem. Ges. (1905), 38, 2712; Ibid. (1906), 39, 2270. Am. 

 Chem. Journ. (1908), 39, 696. 



12 Wood, Remington and Sadtler, U. S. Dispensatory, (1899), 1636. 



