343 



THE CHEMISTRY OF SOME COMMON PLANTS. 



p. Q. KEEGAN. LL.D., 



Patterdale, Westmorland. 



Wood Anemone. Anemone nemerosa. Of all the lovely 

 flowers of early springtime this one is par excellence by reason 

 of its gracefulness and associations. In an open wood nestling 

 near the feet of tall trees, its starry clusters, gracefully pendent 

 or erect in rain or shine, gently wave to the balmy breath of 

 spring. It shrinks from cold and rain, but 'the first moment 

 that the sun may shine bright as the sun itself, 'tis out again.' 

 The plant is acrid and bitter, but not truly poisonous, although 

 it produces diuresis, congestion of the lacteals, and impoverish- 

 ment of the blood — all which is due to a very volatile, odourless 

 bitter principle called anemonin C^'^H^O^ which chemically is an 

 acid anhydride with aldehydic and hetonic groups easily decom- 

 posed during the drying of the herb into anemonic acid with 

 destruction of the acrid-narcotic action. The rhizome grows in 

 a horizontal direction, migrates rather quickly in the soil, dies 

 off very late at the hind end, and possesses only thread-like, 

 non-contractile rootlets ; it contains 72 per cent, of water and 

 11*5 cellulose, also much starch and resin, some tannin, and 

 a blackish-brown substance possibly phlobaphene. The above- 

 ground parts of the plant have much carotin and wax, some 

 resin and enemonin, a very little iron-greening tannin or 

 tannoid, some pectosic mucilage, no free phloroglucin, and 

 little sugar, starch, or oxalate of calcium ; the ash amounts to 

 8*85 per cent, in dry and contains 48*2 per cent, soluble salts, 

 i9'5 lime, 8*i P^O% 4*3 SO^, and 12 chlorine. 



Qorse or Whin. Vlex Europseus, Who has not marked 

 * the gay Gorse bushes in their flowering time?' A tenant of 

 wild sandy heaths and siliceous places, it enjoys a vigorous 

 vegetation, needs plenty of bright light, shuns lime, and poverty 

 of soil, phosphates and nitrates, is no obstacle to its propagation 

 and extension. It acquires its nitrogen by fixation from the 

 atmosphere. The starch seems to disappear from the cortex 

 and pith, but not from the wood during the winter. The plant 

 -contains about 53 per cent of water, 4*5 albumenoids, 0*9 fat, 

 14*3 crude cellulose, i"8 sugars, 8 to 12 pentosans and pectin, 

 and 1-57 ash, which (pure) has 27 per cent, potass, 117 lime, 

 1*6 iron, 67 P^O^ and 47 SO^. There seems to be no alkaloids 

 or toxic glucosides in the flowering bush, but the seeds contain 



1904 November i. 



