Commercial notes and scientific information. 29 



ting a-thujone from the oil. The semicarbazone had m. p. 186°, and sp. rot. ["] D + 64,4° 

 (in alcoholic solution). The thujone regenerated from the semicarbazone by means of 

 phthalic anhydride was, singularly enough, inactive. From the odour of the oil it is 

 probable that it contains borneol, but there was not sufficient experimental material 

 available to determine this point. 



Atherosperma Leaf Oil. Of Atherosperma moschatum, Lab. ("Australian sassafras"), 

 a plant belonging to the N. O. Monimiacea?, and a native of Victoria, only the oil from 

 the bark was known up to the present 1 ). The oil from the leaves has only recently 

 been prepared in fairly large quantities by M. E. Scott 2 ) and has been closely investi- 

 gated by her. The leaves were distilled two or three days after being gathered, and 

 yielded 1,7 to 2,65 p. c. oil. The fractions which passed over first (about 30 p. c.) were 

 lighter than water, the others were heavier. The crude product is of a yellowish 

 colour, with a clearly perceptible sassafras odour. Its characters are as follow: d 1,027, 

 [«] D + 7,5°, n D 1,5211. The presence of the following constituents was ascertained: 

 15 to 20 p. c. a-pinene (b. p. 157 to 158°; hydrochloride m. p. 130°; nitrosochloride, 

 m.p. 103°), 15 to 20 p. c. ^camphor (m. p. 174,5 to 176°; [«] D + 40,66 °), 50 to 60 p. c. 

 methyleugenol (b. p. 251,7°; bromoderivative m.p. about 75°) and 5 to 10 p. c. safrol 

 (b.p. 233°; m.p. 8 to 12°). 



Oil of Backhousia citriodora. According to a communication by R. C. Cowley 3 ), 

 Director of the School of Pharmacy at Brisbane, Queensland, it is to be feared that 

 the production of oil of Backhousia citriodora, F. v. Muell. (N. O. Myrtaceae) will diminish 

 more and more, and that for this reason the hopes which have been awakened in 

 connection with this oil as a raw material for the preparation of citral 4 ) will probably 

 never be realised. The cause of this decline is that the producers do not consider 

 the distillation of the oil to be a sufficiently lucrative pursuit (comp. our last Report, 

 p. 119) and that, moreover, the trees which yield the oil are gradually being exter- 

 minated, because the wooded coast-strip between Brisbane and Gympie, which is the 

 only place where the trees are found, is more and more being utilised for other 

 purposes. 



The oil-yield is rather small; for instance, 33 cwts. of (green?) leaves and branches 

 afforded only 26 lbs. oil, = 0,703 p. c. In Gildemeister and Hoffmann's The Volatile Oils, 

 1 st Ed. p. 538, it is stated that the leaves contain 4 p. c. essential oil. 



Banana Oil. C. Kleber 5 ) has recently isolated and investigated the odoriferous 

 principle of the banana. For this purpose he allowed an entire bunch of green bananas 

 to ripen thoroughly, peeled the ripe fruit, crushed it, and, from this highly aromatic 

 material, prepared by steam distillation a few drops of an oil possessing the charac- 

 teristic odour of bananas. By saponifying with aqueous soda liquor, Kleber succeeded 

 in splitting up the oil into acetic acid (analysis of the silver salt) and into a body with 

 a fusel-oil like odour. The latter he converted from primarily-produced valeraldehyde 

 into valeric acid (analysis of the silver salt), by oxidation with permanganate in alkaline 

 solution. Kleber holds that this investigation proves the occurrence of amylacetate in 

 ripe bananas. In addition the oil contained traces of a body with an odour of phenol. 



x ) Comp. Gildemeister and Hoffmann, The Volatile Oils, p. 369. — *) Journ. chem. Soc. 101 (1912), 1612. — 

 3 ) Chemist and Druggist 81 (1912), 523, 965. — 4 ) Comp. Schimmel's Bericht April 1SSS, 20; October 1SSS, 17; 

 Report April 1906, 83; October 1905, 44; October 1906, 12. — 5 ) Americ. Perfumer 7 (1912), 235. 



