280 
NOTE ON A NEW KIND OF KAMALA. 
I had the opportunity for examining authentic specimens of the above plant 
from the Calcutta gardens, for which I am indebted to my friend Haubury, 
and several others received from the late Mr. Zollinger, under the name 
Rottlera affinis, Hasskarl, (3. sumcitrana , a species now united with Mallotus 
philippinensis by the recent author of the Euphorbiacere in the ‘ Prodromus. 
The glands of these plants I find to be certainly identical with commercial 
kamala, as hitherto furnished by English as well as by continental importers, 
and the mother plant must certainly be, as generally supposed, the said Mallotus 
or Rottlera. 
The resins contained in kamala, to the amount of 78 per cent., have been ex¬ 
amined, in 1855, by Anderson,* who stated, at the same time, that 3-8 per cent, 
of the weight of kamala are due to inorganic matters. I must confess that I 
never met with the drug of so great purity ; all my samples yield at least three 
times that amount of ash. But for a long time past the kamala we have had 
A. New Kamala. 
a, predominant form of glands; be, more or less conical forms; 170 to 200 micro- 
millimetres. 
d, d , glands exhausted by alcohol and boiled in water ; the resin-cells thus emptied. 
g, some resin-cells isolated before exhausting them. 
f,f, hairs, intermixed with the glands, not tufted nor stellate. 
B. Common Kamala 
from the capsules of Mallotus philippinensis, Muller Arg. (Syn. Rottlera tinctoria, Koxb.) 
h, h, glands showing (as is always the case) their flat side ; the small clavate resin-cells 
radiating from the centre of the base and never superposed in several ranges like in 
a , b, c. Diameter of the whole gland only 70-120 micromillimetres. 
i, i, stellate hairs, intermixed with the glands; they resemble those of Fig. A, excepting 
in being shorter and proportionately stouter. 
Ic , Jc, glands exhausted by alcohol. 
* Edinburgh New Phil. Journ. vol. i. p. 330; Pharm, Jouvn. and Transactions, vol. xvii. 
p. 407. 
