KEEGAN : THE CHEMISTRY OF SOME COMMON PLANTS. 43: 
which 1o‘g1 are pure protein and 2°66 amides, or about 4 per cent. 
nitrogenous bodies in the fresh plant. There is also fat, resin, sugar,. 
and pectin, but no tannin. The rdle played by the latter body in. 
most plants is here taken by an ingredient which seems identical with 
luteolin. It yields all the reactions of quercetin, which it closely 
resembles, except that its alcoholic solution is coloured olive-brown 
or red-brown by perchloride of iron, and not deep green as in the 
latter case. 
Yellow Bedstraw (Gadlium verum). This extremely cheerful 
and pretty denizen of the driest wastes and sand-banks is exceed- 
ingly interesting from a chemical point of view. Its aspect is. 
palpably yellow, and the tiny flowers are tinctured by carotin, and 
have in addition much yellow resinous matter, an iron-greening 
tannin C™H8O8, rubichloric acid C“H®*O*, citric and quinic — 
starch, much oxalate of calcium, but very little asc 
a curious purplish substance (possibly purpurin) insoluble in cold 
alcohol or benzene after purification; there is also a eles of 
ferment (vegetable rennet) in the flowers which has the power 
of coagulating boiling milk. The stem and root have pretty much 
the same composition, the most remarkable feature of which is the 
intense colouring-producing power of some of its constituents. 
Rubichloric acid, for instance, which forms a colourless solution in 
water, when boiled with a few drops HCl suddenly produces a deep- 
blue, then green colour, and deposits a dense, dark-green precipitate 
which is soluble in ammonia, and fused with potash does not yield. 
any benzene derivative. 
Daisy (Bellis perennis). This ‘the emprise and flowre of flowres 
all’ is rather bereft of important or interesting chemical constituents. 
The florets of the disc are tinged by carotin enclosed in chromo- 
leucites of a granular structure; the florets of the ray when they are 
crimson-tipped or all deep pink: owe this soluble pigment to a tannin 
anhydrid e other constituents of the plant are resin, inulin, an. 
iron-greening tannin in small quantity, malic and tartaric acids, etc. 
The presence of inulin in the capitula serves to explain the rapidity 
with which daisies spring up on a just close-shaven lawn. 
Dandelion (Zaraxacum dens-leonis). The familiar milky juice- 
issuing from the plucked stalk of this plant is an earnest that it 
point of fact, it does. The flowers are coloured by carotin contained. 
in homogeneous hickiebiibeccttbets which are derived from chloro- 
leucites. The milk saps of plants in general always contain resin, 
caoutchouc, essential oil, albumen, a sugar, fat, tartaric acid, 
a colouring matter, and mineral salts. The peculiar bitter principle of 
February 1897. 
