826 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
leaves, 7 in Saponara officinalis, 8 and in about twenty other species 
of phanerogams. 5 The identity of the peculiar substance from 
all these plants with saponarin has not been fully established. 
Saponarin forms crystals which, dried in the air, are white, 
dried in a vacuum they are pale yellow. It is insoluble in cold 
water, soluble in solutions of caustic alkalies or alkaline car¬ 
bonates with an intense yellow color. In mineral acids it gives 
a yellow solution. The solution in sulphuric acid has a blue 
fluorescence. Upon dilution the saponarin is not precipitated 
at once. This acid solution, upon the addition of iodine in 
potassium iodide solution, is colored blue or violet. The glu- 
coside combines with nine acetyl radicals to form a nonacetyl 
derivative of saponarin. 
Vitexin. 
Yitexin, C 15 H 14 0 7 , occurs as a glucoside in the New Zealand 
dye wood Puriri, Vitex litoralis, * 1 and as the glucoside saponarin 
in saponara officinalis . 2 
Yitexin crystallizes in microscopic, glistening plates of a pale 
yellow color. It melts at 260° with characteristic frothing. 
It is insoluble in water, slightly soluble in alcohol, soluble in 
pyridine and in solutions of alkalies with a golden yellow color. 
Vitexin forms a pentacetyl derivative. Upon treatment with 
nitric acid it forms a tetranitro apiginin. By decomposition 
with caustic alkalies it forms phloroglucin and p-hydroxy aceto¬ 
phenone. It is therefore closely related to apiginin from which 
it differs by the elements of two molecules of water. Since it 
forms phloroglucin and p-hydroxy benzoic acid the additional 
hydroxy groups are probably in the pyron cycle, or in a chain 
which would give rise to this cycle. 
CH 
CH CH 
HOC 
HC 
0 
1C — o —- c - c 
OH 
C — CH — CH OH 
CH CH 
COH 
OH 
T Bull. Soc. Bot. de France., 5, p. 711. 
1 Jr. Chem. Soc., 73, p. 1019; 77, p. 422. 
a Jr. Chem. Soc., 89, p. 1210.. 
