[ 451 ] 



LXVI. Chemical Notices from Foreign Journals. 

 By ^Atkinson, Ph.D., F.C.S. 



[Continued from p. 3 15. J 



FELDMANN* has investigated the roots of the Laserpitium 

 latifolium, L., and has found that this plant, like many 

 others which are botanically allied, contains a peculiar new crys- 

 tallized substance to which he has assigned the name Laserpitine. 



The finely-cut roots are exhausted by alcohol of 80 per cent, 

 at a temperature of 60°, and of the filtered extracts as much 

 alcohol as possible distilled off in the water- bath. On cooling, 

 the liquid separates into two layers — a lower aqueous layer, and 

 an upper brownish-coloured resinous one. This latter contains, 

 along with some resin, nearly all the laserpitine ; on separating 

 it from the other and exposing it in shallow vessels, it forms a 

 crumbly mass of crystals. By appropriate purification these are 

 obtained quite pure, in colourless rhombic prisms without smell 

 or taste. When they contain some brown resin they taste bitter. 

 They are insoluble in water, but easily soluble in alcohol, ether, 

 benzole, &c. Chloroform dissolves more than its own weight 

 of laserpitine. 



It melts at 114° ; and the melted mass cools to an amorphous 

 mass, which sooner or later passes into the crystallized condition. 

 Amorphous laserpitine has a far lower fusing-point than crystal- 

 lized, dissolves more easily in solvents, and separates again in 

 the amorphous form. If laserpitine is heated beyond its melt- 

 ing-point, it volatilizes and sublimes, without decomposition, in 

 oily drops. 



Laserpitine is not altered by treatment with dilute hydrochloric 

 acid, or by being heated in a current of hydrochloric acid gas. 

 Heated in a closed tube with concentrated aqueous hydrochloric 

 acid, a decomposition takes place, but without any definite results. 

 This applies also to treatment with dilute sulphuric acid. 



Laserpitine is decomposed by fusion with caustic potash, and 

 also by treatment with strong alcoholic potash. To a saturated 

 alcoholic solution of laserpitine, concentrated caustic potash was 

 added until the precipitate at first formed was redissolved. This 

 solution was then heated on the water-bath until all alcohol was 

 removed. The solution was then neutralized with sulphuric 

 acid, by which some resinous matter was separated, and the fil- 

 tered solution supersaturated with dilute hydrochloric acid and 

 distilled in a condenser as long as any acid passed over; the acid 

 distillate was shaken with ether until the acidity was removed, and 

 on leaving the ether to spontaneous evaporation, fine long needles 



* Liebig's Annalen, August 1865. 



