186 Keegan: The Chemistry of the Lakeland Trees. 
mineral matters (ash), the half of which is lime. The fruit 
contains 16 per cent. of a green oil having the odour of 
bugs, also an acrid resin, a bitter principle, tannin, and 
mucilage. 
Wild Cherry. Prunus avium. We have now arrived at 
a most beautiful species of the wonderful order Rosacez. Wit 
us it is merely a denizen, but we have it on high authority that 
here it is more plentiful than in any other part of England, doubt- 
less because both climate and soil here suit it to a tee. he 
chemical analysis, after all, is comparatively simple. It contains 
two substances, viz., phloroglucin, C®*H*(OH)’, and gum in 
especially large quantity. According to Waage, the former 
occurs in the free state in the bast, pith, cambium, the upper 
epidermis of the leaves, wood bundles, in short, nearly all parts 
of the tree contain very much of it. The gum exudes sometimes _ 
from the bark, and is then apparently poured forth as a patho- 
logical product or condition of the plant, but it is primarily 
formed in special conduits and in the vessels, and sometimes the 
contents a the latter, sometimes their walls participate in its. 
formation; it seems to have the characters of soluble gum 
arabic aa insoluble tragacanth combined, as on hydrolysis it 
yields arabinose and galactose. The bark contains fat, a white 
wax, about 4 per cent. tannin, which is iron-blueing and yields 
on potass-fusion protocatechuic acid, with about twice its 
weight of phloroglucin; there is also-a small quantity of carotin 
and chlorophyll, much oxalate of calcium, a bitter principle 
which is not phloridzin or quercin, some mannite and glucose, 
a yellow and a red phlobaphene, but no resin. The young 
leaves contain a considerable quantity of rutin (do. also in the 
owers), which later on gives place to tannin, which gradually 
increases, the red autumn leaves containing by far the largest 
amount; there is also very much mucilage, but the. starch 
production seems decidedly feeble, owing to the choking 
influence exerted by the tannoid compounds on the formation 
and free activity of the chlorophyll. On the whole, it will be 
observed that in this highly interesting organism there is a 
lavish effluence of, on the one side, gum and glucose, and, on 
the other, of tannins and phlobaphenes 
Mountain Ash. Sorbus aucuparia. We need not rehearse ~ 
explain how ‘by a brook side or solitary tarn, she her station 
doth adorn.’ Belonging to the same order as the last, the 
‘Naturalist, — 
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