Am.  jour,  pharm.  |    Distillation  of  Geranium  Oil  in  India. 
January,  19 18.    >  3 
33 
The  oil  occurs  mainly  in  the  flowers  and  in  the  green  leaves. 
The  stem,  the  leaves  which  have  turned  yellow,  and  other  parts  of 
the  plant  have  no  oil  in  them.  The  plants  are  gathered  just  before 
the  opening  of  the  flowers  when  the  citron-like  aroma  begins  to 
change  into  a  rose-like  scent.  The  whole  plant  is  put  into  the  still. 
Sometimes  the  distillers,  in  order  to  make  the  aroma  finer,  add  a 
small  quantity  of  rose  petals,  the  distillate  of  oil  from  which  is 
commercially  known  as  rose-geranium. 
The  yield  of  oil  is  stated  to  vary  with  the  locality  and  with  the 
varieties  used  for  distillation.  The  leaves  of  P.  odoratissimum 
yield  in  France  from  o.i  to  0.2  per  cent,  and  in  Corsica  0.125  to 
0.166  per  cent.;  in  Reunion  the  leaves  of  P.  capitatum  give  0.1  to 
0.14  per  cent,  of  oil.  In  Italy,  it  is  stated,  by  careful  distillation 
the  flowers  once  gave  1.5  to  1.98  per  cent,  and  the  leaves  0.7  to 
0.8  per  cent.  In  Sicily,  on  the  other  hand,  only  0.07  per  cent,  was 
obtained.  The  major  portion  of  the  geranium  oil  of  commerce 
comes  from  Africa  and  Reunion. 
The  main  constituent  of  the  oil  is  geraniol,  but  citronellol  is 
also  present.  In  addition  to  the  free  alcohols,  tiglic  acid  esters, 
together  with  small  quantities  of  caproic  acid  esters,  are  also  present. 
Traces  of  acetic,  butyric,  and  valeric  acids  have  also  been  detected. 
The  oil  has  60  to  70  per  cent,  of  the  geraniol  and  15  to  25  per  cent, 
combined  geraniol  in  the  form  of  esters.  Schimmel  &  Co.  report  the 
presence  of  linalool,  one  of  the  amyl  alcohols,  pinene,  and  phel- 
landrene.  Pure  geranium  oil  is  soluble  in  three  times  its  volume 
of  70  per  cent,  alcohol,  which  is  a  very  reliable  test  for  the  detec- 
tion of  turpentine  and  fatty  oils. 
The  geranium  is  propagated  in  Algeria  by  cuttings,  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  renew  the  plantations  every  year,  as  is  done  in  the 
south  of  France,  for  the  climate  of  Algeria  is  rather  warmer  and 
the  plants  are  therefore  not  killed  by  frost  in  the  winter,  It  is  said 
that  in  Mitidja  the  plant  sometimes  attains  an  age  of  twelve  years. 
It  often  happens  that  the  plant  is  in  leaf  throughout  the  year,  but 
there  are  occasions  in  Algeria  also  when  the  geranium  plantations 
suffer  severely  from  frost.  In  the  South  of  France  the  pelargonia 
are  treated  as  annuals ;  that  is  to  say,  every  spring  the  fields  are 
planted  with  fresh  cuttings,  which  have  been  collected  during  the 
autumn  and  left  to  winter  in  protected  spots.  In  the  south  of 
France  there  is  only  one  crop  yearly — -in  the  autumn ;  but  in  Algeria 
