296 Keegan: Chemistry of Lakeland Shrubs and Bushes. 



cent., with about 45 per cent, carbonate of lime and 22 silica. 

 The alliance of the Ivy with the Umbelliferae is strikingly 

 demonstrated by the results of the chemical analysis. 



Apple. Pyrus Malus. This bush is frequent in the 

 Lakeland hedges and thickets, ascending to 900 feet. The 

 blossoming is redundant in most cases, although the fruit is 

 harsh, crabbed, and austere. The chemistry is of highly 

 remarkable and quite unique interest. The wood has much 

 starch, phloroglucin, and glucose. On 15th November I found 

 that the pith cells were still full of starch, although it had 

 vanished completely from the bark. The latter contains a 

 tannin identical with that of the Horse Chestnut, also free 

 phloroglucin, and up to 5 per cent, of a highly remarkable and 

 extremely well defined glucoside discovered in 1835 by De 

 Koninck and Stas and named phlorizin, C 21 H 24 0 10 ; its chemical 

 constitution is not certainly known, but it belongs to or is 

 hydroxy-phenylpropionic acid ; it tastes sweet with bitter after- 

 taste, is crystalline, and when its aqueous solution is boiled with 

 nitrite of potassium and sulphate of zinc a blue or violet colour 

 is produced, also when it is moistened with ammonia in the air 

 it turns orange, red, and finally dark blue ; it is evidently 

 a direct decomposition product of albumenoid. The leaves 

 have much carotin and white wax, but very little fat or resin; 

 what is remarkable is that little rutin or tannin can be detected, 

 their place being usurped by phlorizin ; much proteid, malate 

 and oxalate of calcium, considerable starch, and about 7 per 

 cent, of ash containing much lime and little silica. The fruit 

 remains in a condition of chronic unripeness, i.e., it contains 

 much starch and some cane-sugar and levulose along with free 

 acids and tannin, but the fermentative oxidising processes are 

 not powerful enough to exhaust the starch, to produce a 

 sufficiency of sugar, or to completely burn up the acids and 

 tannin. 



Bird Cherry. Prunus padus. The chemistry of this bush 

 is qualitatively very similar to that of the Wild Cherry (see 'The 

 Naturalist,' No. 522, July 1900, p. 217), with, however, the very 

 important and peculiar difference incident to the presence of 

 the well-known nitrogenous glucoside amygdalin, "C' 20 H 27 NO n , 

 accompanied by its special ferment emulsin. 'Prunus padus,' 

 says Wicke, ' appears impregnated with amygdalin, all the 

 organs contain it.' Another feature is that the flowers, when 

 distilled- with dilute solution of soda or lime, yield a distillate 

 charged with trimethylamine — a decomposition product, it is 



Naturalist, 



