136  North  American  Conifer <z.  {  AdmS; Searn1' 
A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOME  m 
NORTH  AMERICAN  CONIFERS. 
By  Edson  S.  Bastin  and  Henry  Trimble. 
{Continued  from  page  79.) 
PINUS  PALUSTRIS. 
CHEMICAL  COMPOSITION. 
For  the  purpose  of  investigating  the  constituents,  other  than 
the  oleoresin,  of  Pinus  palustris,  two  specimens  were  obtained;  one, 
consisting  of  young  shoots,  was  procured  in  Philadelphia,  just  before 
the  holiday  season,  when  considerable  quantities  of  the  tops  of 
young  long-leafed  pines  are  brought  from  North  Carolina  and  sold 
in  Northern  cities.  The  present  sample  was  probably  collected  in 
December,  as  it  was  quite  "  green  "  when  received.  The  bark  and 
leaves  of  this  specimen  were  investigated.  The  other  sample  was 
obtained  from  Dr.  Charles  Mohr,  of  Mobile,  Ala.,  and  was  also  col- 
lected in  December.  It.  was  taken  from  trees  of  medium  size  and 
age,  and  consisted  largely  of  cork.  The  following  are  the  percent- 
age results  for  moisture,  ash  and  tannin  : 
Ash  in  Tannin  in         Tannin  in 
Absolutely         Air-Dry  Absolutely 
Moisture.    Dr3'  Material.       Material.        Dry  Material. 
Leaves  of  young  tree  .  .  .   4*92  1*91  7  54  7*93 
Stem  bark  of  young  tree  .    7*46  1-34  I7'49  18*89 
Trunk  bark  of  old  tree  .  .10-62  o'8o  5*04  5*64 
The  tannin  in  all  cases  gave  a  green  color  and  precipitate  with 
ferric  chloride,  a  yellow  precipitate  with  bromine  water  and  a 
purplish  precipitate  with  lime  water,  thus  indicating  its  similarity 
to  those  already  studied  in  this  natural  order. 
The  leaves  readily  yielded  their  green  coloring  matter  to  absolute 
alcohol,  to  which  solvent  they  also  imparted  an  acid  reaction  similar 
to  that  obtained  from  the  leaves  of  the  other  species  examined. 
Mucilage  was  present  in  both  leaves  and  bark,  but  in  relatively 
small  proportion. 
The  ash,  in  all  cases,  was  composed  chiefly  of  calcium  phosphate 
with  some  sulphate  and  carbonate. 
The  oleoresin  is  by  far  the  most  important  constituent  of  the 
long-leaf  pine.  According  to  H.  Mayr1,  the  sap  wood  yielded  2-65, 
and  the  heart  wood  11-09  Per  cent,  of  resin,  and  he  ventured  the 
1  Das  Harz  der  Nadetholzer,  Berlin,  1894. 
