io6 Schunck . — The Chemistry of Chlorophyll . 
boiling ligroin, in which the needles are nearly insoluble. 
This is the only well-defined product of the action of aniline 
on leaves ; there may be others that are formed at the same 
time, but which cannot be separated from the fatty matters 
and other impurities accompanying them. 
The discoloration of green leaves by aniline, which is due, 
in part at least if not entirely, to the formation of this 
product, takes place, I have found, with the leaves of the 
following plants : — common ash, buck-wheat, carrot, dock 
(Rumex obtusifolius ), grass, groundsel ( Senecio ), hop, ivy, 
laburnum, lettuce, lime, yellow lupin, mignonette, mint, oak, 
pear, potato, privet, rhododendron, rue, also with the leaves 
of the following: — Angelica , Antirrhinum , Azalea pontica , 
Calceolaria , Chrysanthemum , Dahlia , Geranium , Hypericum , 
Helichrysum , Lycium , Escholtzia californica , Spiraea , Pinus 
excelsa , Tropaeolum , Weigelia ; lastly with the fronds of the 
following ferns : — Aspidium Filix-mas , Blechnum sp., Osmunda 
regalis , and Polystichum aculeatum. This list is, I think, 
sufficiently extensive to justify the conclusion that the dis- 
coloration by aniline is a general property of green leaves. 
There are, however, some apparent exceptions to the rule. 
Among these cabbage leaves and the leaves of garden spinach 
and of Rhododendron ponticum may be named. These leaves, 
after being moistened with aniline and left exposed, remain 
green for a long time, and only very gradually acquire a 
brown tinge, many degrees less intense than that of most 
anilised leaves ; they yield, however, on treatment a quantity 
of the same crystalline substance as other leaves do, though 
perhaps a little less than usual. The excess of aniline with 
which the leaves in these experiments have been treated and 
which is allowed to drain off, always contains a quantity of 
the crystalline substance in solution ; on adding to it an 
excess of dilute hydrochloric acid a quantity of flocculent 
matter is left undissolved, from which some of the crystalline 
substance may easily be obtained. 
That this process of decomposition or conversion by aniline 
affects the chlorophyll of the leaves chiefly is evident, for not 
