13 
On the Frtuts and Seeds of Rhamnus. 
A. Six of the fruits were placed intact in cold distilled 
water, in a labelled test-tube, and the whole kept at 15° to 
1 6°C. in a hot-house for twenty-four hours, perfectly at rest. 
The fruits all floated. In the course of some hours a 
yellow cloud was observed round the fruits. After twenty 
hours a copious yellow precipitate had fallen to the bottom 
of the pale, lemon-coloured liquor : a similar precipitate was 
sticking to the outsides of the fruits. 
B. Six of the fruits were slightly crushed , and treated in all 
respects exactly as in A. 
The cold water at once turned pale lemon colour, diffusion 
streaks falling from the floating pieces of fruit as the water 
dissolved the yellow glucoside from the pericarps : in ten to 
fifteen minutes the solution was of an intense, clear lemon 
colour. In two hours a bright golden-yellow precipitate was 
falling to the bottom, and in three hours there was a copious 
precipitate 1 . 
C. Six of the fruits were placed intact in a tube as before, 
but boiled for ten minutes : then treated exactly as in A. 
A deep golden, clear liquor at once resulted : the fruits fell 
to the bottom of the tube, leaving the perfectly clear solution 
above. There was no precipitate — not even a cloudiness — 
after twenty-four hours. 
D. Six fruits were crushed, and then treated exactly as C. 
The result was the same — no precipitate was formed in 
twenty-four hours owing to the ferment being destroyed by 
the boiling. 
E. Six of the fruits were dissected, and the outer pericarps 
alone taken and treated exactly as in A. 
A pale yellow solution was at once produced, and slowly 
became more and more intense as the xanthorhamnin was 
dissolved from the cells. The liquor remained perfectly clear 
even after twenty-four hours 2 . 
1 This precipitate was rhamnin, slowly forming in the quiescent liquor, as the 
ferment acted on the glucoside, xanthorhamnin : obviously the quicker action here 
was due to the fruits having been crushed. 
2 And longer, for there was no turbidity to be seen on the following day again. 
