•September 14, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
209 
in a somewhat larger quantity. Among these latter the 
order Zingiberacec s claims a prominent place, as the fol¬ 
lowing experiments will show. 
All the Cardamoms at my command afforded ashes of 
distinctly green colour even by incineration of the 
smallest quantity of the drug. This is also most striking- 
in Grains of Paradise where the manganate of potassium 
is so largely formed, that I deliberated whether an acci¬ 
dental admixture of some compound of manganese had 
not occurred. I therefore examined the fruits of Amo- 
mum Melegueta , Roscoe, from Sierra Leone, with which 
I had been presented by my friend D. Hanbury.. A 
single seed taken from this fruit and incinerated in a 
platinum capsule is sufficient to yield a green residue, 
the colour of which becomes much more intense if the 
seed is burnt in a loop of thin platinum wire and then 
.fused in the oxidizing part of the flame with a little 
sodium carbonate. For this purpose a small spirit lamp 
is better than a gas light, the flame of which causes a 
current of air which would blow away the small amount 
of ash. The burning of the seed on the platinum wire 
succeeds much better with the flame of spirit of wine ; 
the heat is quite sufficient to fix the ash in the loop of 
the wire. It is then moistened with a little water in 
order to attach a particle of dried carbonate of sodium. 
•Sometimes the carbonate fused with the ash is but little 
coloured at first, but assumes an intense green hue if it 
is moistened and again kept in fusion for some time in 
the oxidizing flame. In the interior reducing part of 
the flame the manganate is destroyed, and the bead be¬ 
comes almost colourless, and vice versa. The coloration 
becomes more distinct by addition of nitrate or chlorate 
of potassium ; borax is not preferable to the carbonate. 
The thin paper-like pericarp of Amomum Melegueta 
affords not more than 7'7 per cent, of ash; this is, how¬ 
ever, much more than the percentage yielded by the 
seeds, and the ash of the former is evidently richer in 
manganese. The smallest fragment of the pericarp 
yielding a scarcely visible quantity of ash will produce 
an intensely green bead with carbonate of sodium. 
Elettaria Cardamomum , Maton, the mother-plant of 
the Malabar Cardamom, as contained in my herbarium, 
from Canara, fully confirmed the above statements. 
Every part of it, the thinnest rootlets, the stalks, the 
leaves, the pericarp as well as the seeds, furnished a green 
bead. 
The fruits of Elettaria Cardamomum , Var. /3. major, 
the Ceylon Cardamom of trade are likewise rich in manga¬ 
nese, especially their pericarp. All the drugs derived 
from zingiberaceous plants which I had the opportunity 
-of examining, were proved to contain manganese, viz., 
the rhizomes of Cassumunar (yellow Zedoary), Curcuma , 
Galanga , Zedoaria , Zingiber. The same remark applies 
to the smallest fragments of the leaves of Amomum 
Cardamomum , L., grown in Java, Curcuma longa , L., from 
■ Java, Curcuma leucorrhiza, Roxb., from Mangalore, Zingi¬ 
ber officinale , Roscoe, from Java. Among Cannacece I have 
examined the leaves of Maranta indica , Tussac, cultivated 
in Java, which afforded an exquisite green bead. Yet 
in Maranta arundinacea, L., grown in the Botanic Garden 
of Bern, I failed to ascertain the presence of the metal 
under notice. 
These experiments speak sufficiently in favour of the 
.suggestion, that manganese is widely and constantly 
distributed throughout the said natural order, although 
it would be desirable to have further confirmation with 
.regard to other Zingiber acecc, which I had not at 
.hand. This I hope will be performed by some other 
chemist. 
I was desirous to make a quantitative estimation of 
manganese in Ceylon Cardamoms, which according to 
their behaviour on platinum wire are likely to be the 
richest in that metal. As to the incineration of the drug, 
the usual attention is requisite to avoid loss, which can 
easily result by the sudden evaporation and inflammation 
of the volatile oil. A low red-heat is sufficient to burn 
away the organic matter. The cold ash must then be 
moistened with water, dried in the steam bath and again 
gently heated. By repeatedly performing this process 
without using a strong heat, the ash can be at last ob¬ 
tained free from carbon. A very high temperature 
would, on the contrary, melt the phosphates and thus 
protect the organic matter. The ash is finally to be 
moistened with carbonate of ammonium, which restores 
the full amount of carbonic acid to the carbonate of 
calcium. Thus, 
I. 4-597 air-dried Ceylon Cardamoms yielded 0-743 
ash = 16-16 per cent.; and 
II. 11-027 air-dried Ceylon Cardamoms yielded 1-525 
= 13-88 per cent., or, on an average, = 15-02 per cent. 
The drug when exposed for 30 hours to the heat of 
boiling water loses 10’73 per cent, of moisture; the 
above number of 15-02, with reference to dried Carda¬ 
moms is consequently to be increased in the reverse pro¬ 
portion. The real percentage of ash then amounts to 
16-8 (III.) The two estimations I. and II. are rather 
discrepant, but could scarcely be expected to agree very 
closely, inasmuch as the drug exhibits great variation in 
the comparative amount of pericarp and seeds, and the 
latter yield less ash. 
The ash was subsequently moistened with dilute hy¬ 
drochloric acid and, as soon as the carbonates were de¬ 
composed, warmed with the same yet concentrated acid. 
After the complete evolution of chlorine I added acetate 
of sodium, in order to replace the hydrochloric by acetic 
acid. The warmed liquid was now saturated with 
chlorine gas, and the peroxide of manganese thus sepa¬ 
rated was collected twelve hours later and weighed, after 
due calcination, in the form of mangano-manganic 
oxide or brown oxide, Mn 3 0 4 , intermediate between pro¬ 
toxide and peroxide. This was performed according to 
the usual rules of analysis ; I ascertained moreover that 
the portion of the ash insoluble in hydrochloric acid 
contained no more manganese, and that, on the other 
hand, the brown oxide of manganese, which the ash had 
furnished, did not alter red litmus paper. 
Of ash, 0-743 as obtained in the above experiment I., 
afforded 0-0082 manganoso-manganic oxide = 0-0059 of 
manganese. 100 parts of the ash consequently contain 
0-79 of it; that is to say, the dried Cardamoms contain of 
that metal 0-16 per cent. In a further experiment 
I incinerated 25 grammes of the same Cardamoms, 
which would have corresponded to 22*31 of dried, 
and, according to number III., would have afforded 
3-75 ash. I obtained now 0-0515 of the oxide Mn 3 
0 4 = 0-0468 of manganese. The ash consequently 
contained 1*28 per cent.; that is to say, the dried 
drug 0-209 per cent, of the metal. The portion 
of the ash, which had not been dissolved by hydro¬ 
chloric acid, yielded still a slight green coloration on 
platinum wire; but I ascertained that no more per¬ 
oxide of manganese was to be obtained from it by means 
of chlorine. . 
As in the case of the ash, the two experiments do not 
quite accord, owing, I am inclined to think, to the same 
Numerous instances are recorded in chemical litera¬ 
ture of plants or their parts affording nearly ^ as 
much or more manganese as I observed in these Car¬ 
damoms. Reichhardt* detected in the ash of cinchona 
barks from 0-10 to 4T per cent, ot Mn 3 0 4 , coi- 
responding- to 0"07 to 2-8 of metal. The lattei amount 
was furnished by flat Calisaya bark yielding- not moio 
than 1*22 per cent, of ash. This bark itself contained 
therefore only 0"03 percent, ot manganese. 
Calluna vulgaris , Salisb., according to Thielau,f fur¬ 
nishes 3'3 per cent, of ash, from which he obtained 4-77 of 
# c Chemische Bestandtkeile der 
sekweig, 1855, p. 77. 
f Wittstein’s ‘ Vierteljahressckrift 
cic,’ iv. (1855) p. 525. 
Clnnarinden. > Braun- 
fur praktische Pharma- 
