OF THE MORINDA CITRIFOLIA. 439 
cohol, and totally insoluble in ether. Water dissolves morindine in the cold very 
slightly. although sufficiently to communicate a yellow colour to the fluid; at the 
boiling temperature, however, it is readily taken up, and again deposited, on cool- 
ing, as a gelatinous mass, destitute of all traces of crystallization, which stops up 
the pores of the filter, and prevents the separation of the mother liquor. It dis- 
solves in solutions of the alkalies, with a fine orange-red colour. With concen- 
trated sulphuric acid it gives a deep purple, which is violet in thin layers. After 
twenty-four hours’ contact, the solution, on being diluted, deposited yellow flocks 
of the colouring matter in an altered condition, as it was now totally insoluble in 
cold water, and gave, with ammonia, a violet and not an orange solution. Nitric 
acid, sp. gr. 1°38, dissolves morindine slowly in the cold, with a deep brownish- 
red colour. The application of heat immediately produces violent action, the 
brown colour disappears, and nitrous acid fumes are evolved. The fluid, after 
long-continued boiling with the acid, and neutralisation with ammonia, gave no 
precipitate with salts of lime. 
Solution of morindine gives, with subacetate of lead, a precipitate depositing 
itself in crimson flocks, which is extremely unstable, and cannot be washed with- 
out losing colouring matter. With solutions of baryta, strontia, and lime, it 
gives bulky red precipitates, sparingly soluble in water. Perchloride of iron pro- 
duces a dark brown colour, but no precipitate. When its ammoniacal solution is 
added to that of alum, the alumina precipitated carries down with it the morin- 
dine as a reddish lake, and, when added to perchloride of iron, a brown precipi- 
tate is thrown down, which cannot be distinguished from pure peroxide of iron, 
but which contains morindine, as the supernatant fluid is colourless. 
Heated in close vessels, morindine melts into a deep brown fluid, and boils at 
a high temperature, with the evolution of an exceedingly beautiful orange vapour 
resembling that of nitrous acid, which deposits itself on cold substances in fine 
red needles of considerable length. A bulky charcoal remains in the vessel. 
The analyses of morindine were performed with oxide of copper, and upon sub- 
stance which had been carefully dried for a long time at 212°. The results were 
as follows: 
13:028 --- carbonic acid, and 
6:406 grains of morindine gave 
: 
2:990  .-- water. 
12:100 =: —_ carbonic acid, and 
5:956 grains of morindine gave 
le 
2°699 «+ water. 
III { 4-564 grains of morindine gave 
9°270 see carbonic acid. 
VOL. XVI. PART IV. our 
