ae Pd Wis 8% “ines His ks 
126 REPORT OF SCHIMMEL 8 Co. APRIL 1914. eesti 
According to D. Hooper’), the seeds of Carica Papaya, L. (N. O. Caricacee), when 
distilled with water, afford an allyl-compound. 
It is said that the flowers of Ochrocarpus siamensis, T. Anders (N. O. Guttifere), a tree 
known in British India by the name of “Tharapw’, develop an aroma reminding of violets. 
In our Report of April 1908 (p.79) we made mention of a sample of wood, a 
native of German East-Africa, which had been sent to us by Prof. Zimmermann, the 
Director of the Biological-Agricultural Institute at Amani. The wood had a pronounced 
odour of skatol. By extracting this substance with ether we isolated and identified it 
(m. p. 95°; m. p. of the hydrochloride 168°). The skatol-odour was particularly pro- ' 
nounced in a sample of reddish-brown wood; in a sample of white wood it was 
much fainter. 
At the time we were unable to give any information on the botanical origin of the 
wood. Prof. Zimmermann has now informed us, at our request, that in the meantime ! 
the parent plant of the wood has been identified as Celtis Durandii, Engl. (N. O. Urticacee). . 
It is an item of special interest that the green wood as well as the bark of the tree | 
are almost devoid of odour, and that the skatol odour only develops when the wood 
has reached an advanced stage of decay. At present the conditions which account 
for the existence of the red wood, which has the most powerful odour, are still 
unknown. Experiments are being conducted at Amani to ascertain the behaviour of 
the wood in the course of its decomposition in water, in the earth, &c. 
From the powdered parts of the root of Serucidaca longipedunculata, Fresenius 
(N. O. Polygalacee), a native of Western Usambara, W. Lenz’) has isolated, by extracting 
the material with low-boiling light petroleum, a viscous, readily-crystallising mass, 
with a clearly-perceptible odour of wintergreen oil. The saponification-liquid, when 
acidulated with sulphuric acid, gave with highly-diluted ferric chloride solution the 
violet colour characteristic of salicylic acid. 
Chemical Notes. 
A. Kétz and E. Schaeffer*) have worked out a new methylation-method, which is 
based upon the reduction of hydroxymethylene compounds into methylene compounds. 
Generally speaking, the hydroxymethylene compounds are very difficult to reduce by 
means of hydrogen and platinum metals, inasmuch as they are bodies with an acid 
reaction, which are apt to give flocculent precipitates with colloidal platinum metal 
solutions. For this reason an attempt to reduce hydroxymethylene menthone with 
palladium chloride in the presence of a protective colloid, resulted in failure. The 
reaction commenced with great rapidity, but after a while the palladium was precip- 
itated in such coarse flakes that no further reduction took place. 
A better result was achieved by shaking the hydroxymethylene menthone, dis- 
solved in methyl alcohol, with a palladium chloride solution without a protective 
colloid. Already in the course of the reduction of the palladium chloride an unusually 
rapid absorption of hydrogen set in, and before the palladium was precipitated — 
in flakes, 1,5 grams of the substance had been for the greater part reduced. The 
rest of the calculated quantity of hydrogen was also gradually absorbed after the 
1) Pharmaceutical Journ. 91 (1913), 369. — %) Arbeiten a. d. Pharm. Institut der Universitét Berlin 10 
(1913), 177. — %) Journ. f. prakt. Chem. Il. 88 (1913), 604. 
