182 Keegan: The Chemistry of the Lakeland Trees. 
verdure, natural wood, and naked rock, or to grand and lavish 
exuberance of sweeping woodlands ; and who, forsooth, would 
gainsay the picturesque effect of forested and scattered se 
birches, and rowans cresting the steeply acclivitous ede 
dominating the genius of the wild mountain waterfall ? Rosle 
stations and mountain winds,’ says Wordsworth, ‘impart a 
peculiar character of picturesque intricacy in their stems and 
branches to trees.’ It might, indeed, have been surmised that 
the Lake district would be the fitly-chosen theatre for such trees 
as are comparatively hardy, adaptable, and accommodating, yet 
at the same time love light and moisture, and an unrestricted 
scope for free development. Practically, and for the most part, 
so it is; but it does not follow, however it may have been in the 
good old times of the forests primeval, when ‘the Oak and the 
Ash and the bonny Ivy tree, oh! they flourished at home in the 
north countrie,’ that to-day the rapacity of man has left wild 
nature to altogether take care of itself. Hence, in consequence, 
we have not only native and denizen, but artificially planted 
trees as well, an example of which last we will now choose and 
proceed to describe its chemistry, viz., the 
Larch. Larix europw#a. This is essentially a mountain 
tree endowed with great root capacity, a strong demand. for 
light, and an ability to throw out shoots which is rare among 
its congeners. The chemical analysis is very simple and by no 
means difficult. In the spring there is a gummy liquid between 
the inner and the outer bark, the sap contains mannite, and the 
cambium cell juice encloses a glucoside called coniferin, C'°H”O", 
which was discovered by Hartig in 1863, and is distinguished by 
the very intense yellow colour which it yields with an aniline 
salt in the presence of acid, and by the deep blue reaction with 
phenol and HCl. The bark contains about 6 to 8 per cent. of 
a tannin which resembles in many ways that of the Rosacez, 
but does not contain nearly so much phloroglucin in its 
molecule. Like the members of this order, too, the Larch has 
a very considerable amount of free phloroglucin in its wood, 
5 ele. ere is a large quantity of sugar, mucilage, 
phlobaphene, resin, and oxalate of calcium. There are three 
woodlands that demand considerate notice. There is first the 
eminently peculiar and vivid greenery of its April frondescence, 
which is undoubtedly due to the large quantity of a yellow 
glucoside (quercitrin or an ally) which the young tufted needles 
sant and peebe peighies and sung the yellow chlorophyllia llian 
None eee | ; Renin: af 
