N. 0. LEGUMINOSJS. 
461 
408 . Sophora tomentosa , Linn, h.f.b.i., l 249 , 
Roxb. 343 . 
Habitat: — Shores of the Eastern and Western Peninsulas 
and Ceylon. 
An evergreen shrub or small tree. Branches, leaves and 
inflorescence shortly and thinly grey-tomentose. Branches 
virgate and persistently downy. Leaves |ft long. Leaflets 
flexible, subcoriaceous, thick, obliquely elliptic-obtuse, 2in. 
long, 11-17, dull grey-green, the veins immersed on both surfaces. 
Flowers sulphur-yellow, in terminal racemes, which latter are 
^ft. long ; pedicels densely silky, articulated a little below the 
Calyx. Calyx nearly truncate, very oblique i-fin. Corolla 
f-fin., blade of standard round, veined. Pod without wings 
or ridges, • -Gin. long, hoai-y, 6-10-seeded, the oblong, hoary, 
seed-bearing joints separated by a narrow, long, seedless neck 
as long as or shorter than the seed-bearing joint. 
Use: — Mr. F. M. Bailey states that the roots and seeds 
have been considered as specifics in bilious sickness in New 
South Wales (Mr. Maiden in the Ph. Journal, for Sept. 1st, 
1889, p. 180). 
Considerable quantities of sophorine were extracted from Sophora tomen- 
tosa, and very carefully compared with pure cytisine, C u H u N 2 £), with the 
result that these two alkaloids proved to be identical. During this investi- 
gation, many new characteristics of cytisine were determined, and new 
derivatives formed. 
The rotatory polarisation of cytisine nitrate is [d]o — 98°2h, the eo-effi- 
.cient of refraction, 1-34419. Cytisine gives no reaction with strong sul- 
phuric acid, or with that acid and sugar, cerous oxide, or Vanadic acid. 
, Frohde's reagent, and evaporation with phosphoric acid, likewise yield no 
reaction. Erdmann’s reagent causes an orange-yellow coloration ; concen- 
trated nitric acid, on warming, a reddish yellow coloration, which becomes 
rather darker on the addition of potash ; strong sulphuric acid and potassium 
dichromate, a green coloration ; evaporation with hydrochloric acid leaves 
a yellow residue ; calcium hypochlorite gives no coloration. 
M ethyloytisine hyd riodide, O l2 II 16 N 2 O, HI ; prepared by the action 
of methylic iodide on the free alkaloid, yields colourless crystals ; its 
solution gives a rotary polarisation, [dJ D = -81°, and a refractive index of 
1-85427. The platinochloride crystallises is orange-yellow needles; the 
aurochloride in»golden -yellow needles. 
With bromine, cytisine yields an orange-red compound containing 4 atoms 
