824 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
Phloretin crystallizes in small colorless plates. It melts at 
253° — 255°. Phloretin forms a tetra-methyl 11 and a tetra- 
acetyl 12 derivative, 12 therefore must contain four hydroxy 
groups. 
Phloridzin crystallizes in fine silky needles, white or faintly 
yellow in color. It melts at 108° —109°. With metals phlor¬ 
idzin forms colored compounds. Conspicuous among these are 
the dark red iron salt and the bright yellow calcium compound. 
Butin, — Trihydroxy — 3, 3', 4' — dihydro — a, ft — flavone. 
Butin, a penthydroxy derivative of diphenyl propanone, was 
first isolated from the flowers of Butea frondosa by Hummel and 
Cavallo * 1 in 1894, and later, by Hill 2 , in 1903. In 1904 a some¬ 
what extended study of the pigment was made by Perkin 3 who 
showed that the substance isolated by Hummel and Cavallo and 
called by them butin was not a single compound but a mixture 
of two substances, one of which was colorless while the other was 
orange red in color. The colored substance Perkin named 
Butein, while to the colorless substance he assigned the original 
name of butin. , Perkin showed further that while butin is a 
trihydroxy dihydro flavanone, butein is a tetrahydroxy deriva¬ 
tive of diphenyl propene, benzyliden acetophenone (chalkon). 
This he proved by the synthesis of butein from monomethyl res- 
acetophenone and dimethyl protocatechinic aldehyde according 
to the processes of Kostanecki 4 and his colleagues in their synthe¬ 
sis of the chalkon derivatives. After the synthesis of butein, 
butin was prepared from it by treatment with dilute sulphuric 
19 C. r., 131, p. 43. 
11 Ber., 28, p. 1396. 
12 Ber. 27, p. 2686. 
1 Proc. Chem. Soc., 10, p. 11. 
2 Proc. Chem. Soc., 19, p. 133. 
3 Jr. Chem. Soc., 85, p. 1459. 
4 Ber. 37, p. 773, 779, 784. 
