88 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



invariably entire ; the lower-most, if any, more or less of a minute 

 silvery lioariness especially at the back. Flowers corymbose, 

 sweet-scented. Petals always of a uniform bright golden 

 yellow, not stained with brown or blood-red as in the Garden 

 Ch. Oheiri of England, though the calyx is purplish. Siliqua 

 racemose, erect l|-2 in. long, covered with close hairs chiefly, 

 if not altogether, pointing upwards. Style prominent, crowned 

 with a cloven stigma. Seeds flat, with a narrow membranous, 

 deciduous border at one side as well as the summit of each. 



Parts used :.— The flowers and seeds. 



Uses:— The flowers, said to be cardiac and emmenago- 

 gue, are used in paralysis and impotence. The seed is also 

 used as an aphrodisiac (TrvineK 



The dried petals are much used in Upper India as an 

 aromatic stimulant (O'Shaughnessy). 



The flowers are employed to make a medicated oil ; for 



this purpose they are boiled in olive oil ; this prepared oil 



is much used for enemata (Year-Book of Pharmacy, 1874, p, 



622). 



By extracting the flowers with low-boiling solvents, a dark-coloured 

 pasty extract is obtained which (after evaporation of the solvent and separa- 

 tion from fatty and waxy matters by strong alcohol) yields, on distillation 

 with steam, a yellowish oil of unpleasant odour having a specific gravity 

 of l'OOl, and distilling under 3 mm. pressure between 40° and 150°C. the 

 yield is about 0*06 per cent- The alcoholic solution shows a feeble bluish 

 fluorescence. A highly diluted alcoholic solution possesses the characteristic 

 odour of the flowers. The oil is found to contain : — Compounds resembling 

 mustard oil, ketones and aldehydes (having the odors of Violets and Haw- 

 thorn), nerol, geraniol, benzyl, linalool, indole, methyl antheranilate, acetic 

 acid (probably in combination with benzyl alcohol and linalool), salicylic acid 

 (probably as methyl salicylate) and traces of phenols and lactones. (J. Ch. I. 

 July 15,1911, p. 829). 



Cheiranthin is obtained by evaporating the alcoholic or aqueous ex- 

 tract of the leaves or seeds of the wall-flower, removing the inactive oils by 

 light petroleum, treating with lead acetate, and finally salting out the gluco- 

 side with magnesium, Sodium or ammonium sulphate, when it separates in 

 small yellow flakes, from which the salts may be removed by means of alcohol 

 and ether. It may also be precipitated by tannin, and in either case still 

 contains an active alkaloid which may be removed by shaking with ether or 

 ethylic acetate. Cheiranthin brings about the characteristic rest is frogs. 

 J. Ch. S. LXXVL, pt. I (1899), p. 378. 



