SCILLA MARITIMA. OFFICINAL SQUILL, OR SEA ONION. 
Class VI. HEXANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, ASPHODELE.E.— THE ASPHODEL TRIBE. 
Fig. (n) exhibits the petals with the stamens and anthers; (5) a bractea; (c) the german and style. 
This valuable article of the vegetable materia medica is a native of the sandy shores of France, Spain, Por- 
tugal, Italy, Sicily, Syria, and the Levant. Sometimes it is found far inland : for instance, at the foot of 
the Estrella mountains ; so that, as Link observes, maritima is rather a fallacious appellation. It thrives 
well in this country, in large garden pots, and was cultivated by Parkinson in 1628; but requires protection 
during winter in a common garden frame. With us, it blossoms in April and May ; but in its native soil 
the flowers are said to be produced in July and August ; the leaves appearing in October and November. 
The bulb, improperly called the root, is sometimes as large as a child’s head, and often, when fresh 
imported, throws out the flowering stem while lying in the shop windows. It is oblong, and composed of 
several fleshy scales, attenuated at both edges, and closely applied one over the other, like the coats of an 
onion. Its outer coat is either pale and whitish, or of a purplish -red colour. The proper roots, which are 
slender and whitish, issue from a plate at the base of the bulb, well represented in our figure, but altogether 
omitted by Redoute, in his pictorial work on Liliaceous plants. The leaves appear long after the flowers ; 
are pointed, a foot or eighteen inches long, radical, numerous, large, sword-shaped, ascending, wavy, re- 
curved, and of a deep green colour. The stem is round, smooth, succulent, and rises from the centre of the 
leaves to the height of two or three feet. The flowers are extremely numerous, and produced in a long, 
close, simple cluster, upon purplish peduncles ; accompanied by small linear, twisted, deciduous bracteas. 
In this, as in other species of Squill, there is no calyx. The corolla consists of six white, elliptical, spreading 
petals, with a reddish mark in the middle of each. The filaments are six, awl-shaped, shorter than the 
petals, to whose bases they are attached, and furnished with oblong, incumbent, green anthers. The ger- 
men is roundish, with a short style, and simple stigma. The capsule is oblong, smooth, marked with three 
furrows, 3-celled, and contains several roundish, compressed seeds. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The bulb of the squill, which consists of concentric 
layers, of a white or purplish colour, is inodorous. When recent, it is extremely bitter, acrid, nauseous, 
and clammy ; dried, it is bitter and less acrid. In France, it is usual to use the intermediate tunics only, 
the outer ones being dry and without taste, while the middle of the bulb is mucilaginous and nearly insipid. 
In this country, the whole bulb is generally used ; low prices being unfortunately more considered than the 
quality of the drug. 
Dried Squill has been subjected to chemical examination by Vogel, who states that it owes its pro- 
perties to a bitter principle, which he has named Scillitine. Besides Scillitine he found it to contain gum, 
tannin, citrate of lime, sugar, and woody fibre. 
Scillitine is obtained by the following process. The juice of the bulbs being expressed, is to be boiled 
for a few minutes, and the citrate of lime that appears is to be separated. Evaporate to dryness, and 
digest the dry residue in alcohol as long as that liquid will take up any thing. Evaporate the alcoholic so - 
lution to dryness, and the residue ( scillitine and tannin) is to be re-dissolved in water, into which acetate of 
lead is to be dropped to throw down the tannin. Filter the liquid, and separate the excess of lead by 
means of a current of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The liquid being again filtered, evaporate to dryness to 
drive off the acetic acid from the acetate. The dry mass, which is white, transparent, and breaks with a 
resinous fracture, is scillitine, mixed with a little sugar, from which it cannot be separated. M. Tilloy, of 
Dijon, is said to have proved that the Scillitine of Vogel is formed by the combination of several principles, 
and that it is only a mixture of uncrystallizable sugar, of an excessively acrid matter, and a very bitter sub- 
stance, which he succeeded in separating. 
