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Nornicotine may "be identified in tobacco, insecticidal tobacco 
preparations, and nicotine preparations by comparing the melting point 
of the mixed picrates of the steam-volatile alkaloids with the picrate 
melting point of a methylated sample thereof. Methylation of the nor- 
nicotine gives nicotine; consequently, the picrate of the methylated 
alkaloids will melt at the same point as nicotine picrate and no de- 
pression of melting will occur in a mixed-melting-point determination 
with nicotine picrate in those cases where steam-volatile alkaloids 
other than nicotine and nornicotine are substantially absent. — Bowen 
and Barthel (1_6) . 
When nightshade ( Solanum nigrum) , Datura stramonium , and tomato 
plants, usually free of nicotine, were grafted separately on tobacco 
( Nicotiana tabacum and N.rustica) , they were enabled to form this 
alkaloid and store it in the leaves and fruit. Large quantities of 
nicotine will form in the scions, if the leaves are removed from the 
tobacco stock at the time of intensive growth of the scions and the 
root of tobacco is present. V/hen tobacco is used as the scion in 
graft upon the same plants, nicotine disappears entirely from the 
graft system and cannot be detected in the stock or scion. When N. 
glauca , which contains anabasine, was grafted on a tomato plant, as 
much anabasine was formed by the scion as occurred in the control 
plant of N. glauca raised under normal conditions. — Shmuk, Smirnov, 
and Il'in (JOT 
OCCURENCE OF NORNICOTINE IN COMMERCIAL NICOTINE SULFATE 
Two commercial samples of nicotine sulfate were found to contain 
nornicotine, in one amounting to nearly 12 percent of the alkaloid 
content. This finding is important because nornicotine has been re- 
ported to be more toxic than nicotine to aohids. Commercial nicotine 
preparations containing nornicotine may be expected to be better con- 
tact insecticides than those of pure nicotine. Since nornicotine is 
known to be less volatile than nicotine, when a mixture of the two is 
used as a fumigant, the predominant effect is believed to be that of 
nicotine. The presence of nornicotine in materials considered to be 
pure nicotine products could easily account for erratic and nonre- 
producible entomological results. — Bowen and Barthel (12) . 
EXTRACTION OF ANABASINE FROM PLANTS 
Steam distillation under pressure can be used to remove anab- 
asine from plant material. — Sokol&v (J8) . 
Of the water- immiscible solvents for the extraction of anab- 
asine, ethylene dichloride is the best for yield and for velocity of 
extraction. Anabasine combines rapidly with the impurities in tech- 
nical ethylene dichloride only during the initial stage of standing, 
after which anabasine is not decomposed and is only partially trans- 
ferred to the residue with the slowly separating products of the 
reaction. The optimum ratio of solvent to raw material is 2:1. A 
semi-production-scale apparatus and experiments are described. — 
Sokolov and Trupp (81) . 
