2o6 plant and organic chemistry 
I undertook the analysis of this bark at the request of Messrs. 
Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit, Michigan, who furnished 
me with a liberal supply of the drug. The coloring prin¬ 
ciple exists in the bark in two or more conditions, as hsema- 
toxylin and as oxidized products. The former was separated 
as yellow crystals, analogous in form to hsematoxylin crystals 
from the true logwood. The alcoholic extract of the bark con¬ 
tained about eighteen per cent, of a red-colored substance 
which agreed in color and dye tests with like constituents 
found in logwood. Mordanted cotton fabric was dyed with 
hsematoxylin from Saraca bark, and presented the charac¬ 
teristic logwood dye colors. 
The extracts of Saraca indica bark containing its coloring 
principle were tested with various reagents, 1 and it was ob¬ 
served that the reactions agreed with hsematoxylin colors, 
and in no case with those of brazilin. 
The bark of the commercial logwood tree is not used for 
extracting the dye, the wood of the tree being employed for 
this purpose. I determined the presence of a small quantity 
of hsematoxylin in the logwood bark, and obtained with its 
extracts the same reaction without alkalies and other reagents 
as with the other wood extracts. But owing to the smaller 
percentage of dye in the bark of the specimens examined, 
the colors were less intense. In the case of the Saraca indica 
bark, the colors were very brilliant, and certainly indicated 
the presence of a large proportion of coloring-matter in it. 
It would be of interest to secure specimens of the wood of 
Saraca , in order to determine if it contains the coloring 
principle, and should this be so, if it exists in sufficiently large 
quantities to warrant its introduction as a new source of this 
commercial product. 
Last summer 2 I extracted from a Honduras plant, called 
“ chichipate,” a yellow dye. It yielded with mordanted wool 
fabrics, colors somewhat resembling those yielded by fustic 
1 S. P. Sadtler and W. L. Rowland, Amer. Jour. Pharm., February, 
1881. 
2 “Preliminary Analysis of a Honduras Plant, named ‘Chichipate.’” 
Paper read before the A. A. A. S , at Buffalo, August, 1886. 
