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satisfactory manner, with the result that we are now faced with a complete 

 failure of the crop. It follows as a matter of course that the prices of 

 Roman chamomile oil have had to be increased, and as things are it 

 appears to be certain that the production of this year, together with the 

 small remaining supplies of last season, will not be sufficient to last until 

 the next crop. It is therefore probable that there will shortly be fresh 

 increases in the price. Experiments made by us at Miltitz in the cultivation 

 of Roman chamomile have also been much affected by heat and drought, 

 but generally speaking all the preliminary conditions for the successful 

 growing of the plant appear to be fulfilled, and we intend next year to 

 continue our planting and distilling experiments. 



Chlorocodon Root Oil. Some years ago Goulding and Pelly 1 ) descri- 

 bed a body melting between 41 and 42° which they had obtained by steam- 

 distillation from chlorocodon root (probably C. Whiteii, N. O. Asclepiada- 

 ceas), a plant which is a native of Uganda. P. Friedlander 2 ) afterwards 

 identified this compound as p-methoxy salicylic aldehyde. 



We recently received from Africa a root which, when distilled with 

 steam, yielded 0,34 °/o of a body which consisted mainly of the solid sub- 

 stance described above, in addition to small quantities of a brown oil. 

 It dissolved readily in ether and alcohol, and sparingly in water. Recrys- 

 tallised from the latter (or better still from dilute alcohol), it afforded 

 white, lustrous needles, m. p. 40 to 42°. The aqueous solution assumed 

 a reddish-brown colour with ferric chloride. The entire distillate had a 

 very obtrusive odour, perhaps somewhat resembling that of rhubarb, while the 

 crystals, when purified by repeated recrystallisation, reminded of coumarin. 

 These data warranted the surmise that the drug examined by us was also 

 a chlorocodon root. Anatomical comparison with the root investigated 

 by Goulding and Pelly (a sample of which had been courteously supplied 

 to us by the Imperial Institute in London), confirmed this surmise, but it 

 was not possible to decide positively whether both roots belonged to the 

 same species. Only two species of Chlorocodon. however, are known, 

 viz., — C. Whiteii, Hook. f. and C. ecomuta, N. E. Br. The former occurs 

 in Natal and elsewhere in South Africa, the latter in the region of the 

 Congo and in tropical East Africa. 



Cinnamon Oil, Ceylon (G. Ph. V). Within the past few months 

 cinnamon chips have continued to show only slight fluctuations, and 

 quite recently it was even possible to buy at somewhat reduced rates. 

 The prices of our pure distillate have remained unaltered, and as we are 

 well-supplied with raw material for a long time ahead, we do not, at the 

 moment, apprehend an advance in the quotations within the near future. 

 We distil cinnamon oil on the largest possible scale and are therefore 



3 ) Proceed, chem. Soc. 24 (1908), 62; Report November 1908, 196. 

 2 ) Monatsh. f. Chem. 30 (1909), 879; Report April 1910, 173. 



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