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PHARMACOGNOSY. 
dark brown, longitudinally wrinkled, with few rootlets 
or rootlet scars, crown somewhat annulate from scars 
of bud -scales and sometimes surmounted by a soft 
woolly tuft of leaf-remains with 1-celled twisted hairs; 
fracture short, horny when dry, tough when damp ; 
internally light brown, radiate, bark 2 to 3 mm. thick, 
wood porous, cambium zone distinct; odor feeble; taste 
mucilaginous, slightly bitter. 
Old woody roots in which the pith is more or less 
obliterated and which have been collected from the 
fruiting plant should be rejected. 
Constituents. — Inulin about 45 per cent., fixed oil, 
resin and a glucoside, probably identical with that 
found in the seed, and to which the name lappin has 
been applied. 
PHYTOLACCA RADIX (Poke Root). 
The root of Phytolacca decandra (Fam. Phytolaccacese), 
a perennial herb indigenous to Eastern North America, 
and naturalized in the West Indies and Southern 
Europe. The root is collected in autumn and, after 
removal of the rootlets, cut into transverse and longi- 
tudinal pieces and dried. 
Description. — Fusiform or nearly cylindrical, taper- 
ing, usually in longitudinal ribbon-like slices, 8 to 16 
cm. long, 5 to 15 mm. in diameter, 2 to 10 mm. thick ; 
externally, bark dark brown, more or less wrinkled ; 
fracture fibrous, tough ; internally light brown, char- 
acterized by alternating layers of fibrovascular tissue 
and parenchyma formed by secondary cambiums; odor 
slight ; taste acrid. 
Constituents. — Resin 1 per cent., sugar 10 per cent., 
asparagin, starch about 10 per cent., calcium oxalate, 
ash 8 to 10 per cent. The drug contains no alkaloids, 
or tannin, but apparently a glucoside allied to saponin. 
