ADULTERATION OF INSECT POWDER. '3 
eye daisy flowers are used to a very limited extent in some of the 
New England States in the preparation of a "tea" for "medicinal" 
purposes. It is quite evident, however, that the daisy flowers col- 
lected iu this country are used largely, if not exclusively, as an 
adulterant of insect powder. 
INSECTICIDAL ACTION OF CHRYSANTHEMUM LEUCANTHEMUM. 
Cantraine (5) learned in Ragusa that the Bosnians and Dalmatians 
used the G. Leiicantheuuan to destroy fleas, but fails to state what 
part of the plant served this purpose. It is quite probable that Can- 
traine mistook the flowers of C. cineraricefolium for those of C. Leu- 
canthemum because of their similarity. Garrigues (12) quotes Can- 
traine and an unnamed writer who states that the flowers, dried, 
pulverized, and used as the Pjjrethrum caucusicum, have the power of 
destroying insects. An anonymous writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle 
(1) states that the Spaniards burn the centers of these flowers in 
order to keep gnats away. 
Kalbruner (18), Beringer (2), Caesar and Loretz (3), Huber (IT), 
and Riley (27.) found powdered daisy flowers to be inactive as an 
insecticide. Scott and Abbott, of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. 
Department of Agriculture, have recently tested powdered daisy flow- 
ers against roaches, bedbugs, house flies, cabbage aphis, chrysanthe- 
mum aphis, nasturtium aphis, orthezia, and red spider, finding it to 
be inactive in every case. 
The use of daisy flowers in insect powder is for no other purpose 
than to cheapen it. Since this form of adulteration is being carried 
on to a marked extent at the present time, it was deemed necessary 
to make a special study of this subject, with the view of establishing 
methods for its detection and quantitative estimation. Samples of 
the flowers of C. Leucanthemum were collected for this purpose from 
various sources, mainly from the collectors of "medicinal" herbs in 
the mountainous regions of Virginia and Xorth Carolina. 
CHEMISTRY OF CHRYSANTHEMUM LEUCANTHEMUM. 
More or less complete analyses of C. Leucanthemum have been made 
by Goessmann (13), Millspaugh (22), Stone (33), Penny (23), Ber- 
inger (2), Thorns (34), and Dietze (8). The results obtained by them 
are given in Table 1. 
