Am  jour.  Pharm. \  Note  on  Euonymus  atropiirpurcus. 
May,  19  io.      *  J  1  1 
357 
is  given  in  "  Pharmacopedia,"  the  illustration  having  been  drawn, 
under  my  superintendence,  from  genuine  specimens  in  the  museum 
of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  by  Mr.  J.  N.  Fitch,  pi.  XVII,  Fig.  2a. 
Greenish,  in  "Materia  Medica,"  p.  217,  points  out  a  characteris- 
tic feature  of  the  bark  (visible  only  under  a  powerful  magnifier, 
such  as  a  platyscopic  or  triplet  lens),  viz.,  that  if  the  bark  is  broken 
transversely  and  the  pieces  separated  very  gently  from  one  another, 
delicate  mucilaginous  threads  will  be  seen  connecting  them,  and  con- 
sisting of  the  "  mucilaginous  "  contents  of  certain  cells  of  the  bark. 
(In  my  opinion  these  contents  are  probably  more  of  the  nature  of 
caoutchouc.)  The  character  is,  however,  a  useful  one.  This  state- 
ment has  been  copied  almost  word  for  word  by  the  author  of  "  Phar- 
macopedia," p.  166,  published  two  years  later. 
The  specimen  of  bark  sent  to  me  as  regarded  with  suspicion, 
and  rejected  as  not  genuine,  consisted  of  about  one  part  in  eight  of 
bark  longitudinally  striated  externally,  the  transverse  fracture  show- 
ing tangentially  striated  liber,  and  at  its  inner  edge  the  silky  threads 
described  by  Greenish,  and  was,  therefore,  undoubtedly  Euonymus 
atro  purpureas.  The  other  seven  parts  consisted  of  a  bark  almost 
identical  in  color  and  general  appearance,  but  on  the  average  some- 
what thicker  and  distinctly  marked  with  numerous  transverse  scars ; 
the  transverse  fracture  did  not  show  any  tangential  striation  of  the 
liber,  nor  were  the  delicate  threads  visible  in  the  fractured  bark. 
The  microscopical  structure  showed  a  distinct  difference  in  the  two 
barks.  In  euonymus  the  medullary  rays  are  numerous,  very  nar- 
row, and  consist  of  a  single  row  of  cells,  as  shown  by  Planchon  and 
Collin,  i.  e.,  Fig.  4  (distinguishable  by  the  cells  being  radially 
elongated,  whilst  those  of  the  surrounding  cells  are  slightly  elongated 
tangentially) . 
In  the  false  bark  the  medullary  rays  consist  of  about  three  rows 
of  cells,  and  all  more  distant  than  in  euonymus,  and  there  are  nu- 
merous oval  cells  five  or  six  times  as  large  as  those  of  the  ordinary 
parenclyma,  containing  a  yellowish  secretion.  By  the  character  of 
the  medullary  rays  alone,  the  two  barks  are  easily  distinguished 
under  the  microscope. 
I  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  identify  this  bark  externally;  it 
presents  some  resemblance  to  that  of  Ptelea  trifoliata,  but  the 
medullary  rays  in  that  bark,  consisting  of  three  or  four  rows  of  cells, 
are  filled  with  a  series  of  sphccraphides,  which  do  not  occur  in  the 
medullary  rays  of  the  false  euonymus.    The  only  other  common 
