^98  ON  PTELEA  TRIFOLIATA. 
The  London  College  does  nol  indicate  any  temperature  ;  the 
Edinburg  and  Dublin  indicate  higher  temperatures  than  are 
adapted  to  produce  a  soluble  preparation. 
ON  PTELEA  TRIFOLIATA. 
By  George  M.  8myser„ 
(An  Inaugural  Essay  presented  to  the  Philada.  College  of  Pharmacy,  1862.) 
Ptelea  Trifoliata,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  Swamp  Bogwood1 
Wafer-ash  or  Hop-tree,  is  a  shrub  from  six  to  eight  feet  in  height, 
with  the  leaves  trifoliate  and  marked  with  pellucid  dots.  The 
flowers  are  polygamous,  greenish  white,  nearly  half  an  inch  in 
diameter,  of  a  disagreeable  odor  and  disposed  in  terminal  corym- 
bose cymes.  Fruit,  a  two-celled  samara,  nearly  an  inch  in  diame- 
ter, winged  all  around,  nearly  orbicular. 
This  shrub  is  "  common  to  this  country,  growing  more  abun- 
dantly west  of  the  Alleghanies,  in  shady  waste  hedges  and 
edges  of  woods.'5  It  flowers  in  June.  The  bark  of  the  root 
of  this  plant  is  used  to  some  extent  by  the  «  Eclectic  Physicians  " 
of  the  west  as  a  tonic  in  intermittent  and  remittent  fevers.  This 
plant  having  been  suggested  to  me  as  a  subject  for  a  thesis,  and 
not  finding  any  account  of  its  having  been  analyzed,  I  deter- 
mined to  make  some  experiments  with  it. 
First,  a  cold  infusion  was  prepared  by  percolating  six  drachms 
of  the  powdered  leaves  with  water,  until  six  ounces  of  liquid  had 
passed.  This  was  of  a  dark  brown  color,  had  a  bitter  aromatic 
taste  and  an  odor  strongly  resembling  that  of  hops.  To  a 
portion  of  this  infusion  a  solution  of  bi-chloride  of  mercury  was 
added  which  produced  a  dirty  white  precipitate,  and  with  succes- 
sive portions  of  the  infusion,  sulphuric  and  muriatic  acids  each 
produced  a  precipitate  ;  the  infusion  was  also  coagulated  by  heat, 
showing  the  presence  of  vegetable  albumen. 
To  a  portion  of  the  infusion  a  few  drops  of  tincture  of  chloride 
of  iron  was  added,  which  produced  a  black  color.  To  different 
portions  were  added  nitrate  of  silver,  sulphate  of  copper,  and  a 
solution  of  gelatin,  all  of  which  produced  precipitates  indicat- 
ing the  presence  of  tannic  acid;  the  portion  which  was  precipi- 
tated by  gelatin  was  filtered,  and  with  the  filtered  liquid  tincture 
