IOI — 



Walter Busse 1 ) has published an interesting pharmacognostic 

 study „On the medicinal and commercially useful plants of 

 German East Africa". Without entering into a description of the 

 many new medicinal and poisonous plants which the author has dis- 

 covered during his long sojourn in the Colony, we will only refer 

 here to some plants observed by him, which are worthy of attention 

 on account of their content of essential oils and odorous sub- 

 stances. 



Of several species of Ocimum growing wild along the roads and 

 in the corn fields, Ocimum canum Sims, was especially met with; 

 this species attracts attention on account of its refreshing aromatic 

 odour, and is used in dwelling houses for driving off mosquitoes. 

 Various other plants were noticeable for their far-spreading helio- 

 trope odour; for example the Rubiacea Plectronia heliotropiodora 

 K. Sch. n. sp., growing in the neighbourhood of Lake Nyassa, 

 whilst a white-flowering Composita, probably Veronica sp. exhaled 

 an even more penetrating heliotrope odour. The Rut ace a Clausena 

 anisata (Willd.) appears also to contain piperonal, contrary to the 

 opinion of its discoverer who had described this plant as having an 

 odour like anise. Finally a species of Ehretia (fam. Borraginaceae) 

 of the island Kwale should be mentioned, whose blossoms also had 

 a heliotrope odour, whilst Busse was unable to observe the heliotrope 

 perfume in Heliotropum strigosum (Willd.) As a new coumarin 

 plant with an exceptionally powerful aroma, the only species of 

 Eupatorium hitherto become known from Africa, E. africanum Hiern, 

 was found in the highlands of Ungoni; here, as in other cases, the 

 odour only occurs when the plant is fading. As new representatives 

 of eugenol-containing plants, there were found in the Sachsen- 

 wald and in the neighbourhood of Amani two labiates which have 

 not yet been defined. Of the jasmine species J. tettense Kl. and 

 J. Bussei Gilg were remarkable for their wonderful perfume. We 

 would further mention Asparagus racemosus Willd. („mssanssa"), a white- 

 flowering shrub with an elder-like odour, in Ostukami, and also 

 various Leguminosae whose blossoms are conspicuous by their 

 aroma, for example Baphia cordifolia Harms n. sp. from the Ugogo 

 desert, Baphia Kirkii Bak., a tree of the littoral, much valued on 

 account of its excellent wood, and Baphia Busseana Harms n. sp. 

 found in Ungoni, which has a particularly powerful and pleasant odour. 



E. Charabot and J. Rocherolles 2 ) now give a connected report 

 on their experiments respecting the distillation of terpene derivatives 



1 ) Berichte d. deutsch. pharm. Ges. 14 (1904) 205. 



2 ) Bull. Soc. chim. III. 31 (1904), 533. 



