210 MALAY POISONS AND CHARM CURES 



brown (or sometimes pinkish-bro-wn), longitudinally 

 wrinkled, and often showing somewhat numerous, 

 slightly raised lenticels, which are round or trans- 

 versely oval or linear, and may occur in horizontal rows 

 of two or three. 



" The following data refer to roots 4 or 5 mm. in 

 diameter measured dry, becoming 6 to 7 mm. on 

 boiling : — 



" A clean-cut transverse surface of the dry root 

 usually shows a more or less distinct yellowish colour, 

 and, when examined with a lens, the yellow colour is 

 seen to occm' especially in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the pores (wood-vessels). The bark (chiefly phloem) 

 is pale brown or pinkish, and thin in the dry root, but is 

 about 1 mm. thick after boiling. On mounting a dry 

 section of the root in a drop of water, the latter becomes 

 milky. This is due to a secretion, \vhich is present in 

 parenchyma-cells of the wood and bast, often occupying 

 large tracts of tliis tissue in the wood. The secretion as 

 occurring in the cells, appears wliite by reflected light, 

 and dark-grey, brownish or yellowish by transmitted 

 light. It is soluble in spirit. 



A transverse section of the root, examined under the 

 microscope, show^s at the periphery several layers of low, 

 rather thin- walled cork-cells, of which the outermost 

 have brown or orange contents. In the bast (phloem), 

 numerous groups of fibres occur. The arrangement of 

 these groups may be partly tangential, partly UTegular, 

 while their shape varies, being round or oval, more or 

 less rectangular (tangentially elongated) or decidedly 

 irregular. Some groups of fibres are accompanied by 

 solitary crystals of calcium oxalate placed in small cells 

 arranged in vertical series (* chambered crystal-paren- 

 chyma *). The individual fibres are mostly 10 to 21 ju 

 in diameter, the larger measurements belonging to fibres 



