Herb Finder
Add Herb Finder to Your Website!
Update Your Account Information
Red Sandalwood, Red saunders | | Name : | Red Sandalwood, Red saunders | | Botanical : | Pterocarpus Santalinus | | Ayurvedic : | Rakta Chandana, Prabhava | | Latin : | PterocarpusSantalinus, Red saunders | | Family : | Lequminosae. | | Description : | This is a large forest tree inhabitingCeylon and the mountains of the opposite CoromandelCoast on the Indian continent. Only in the Madras Presidencydoes it grow wild. The wood is the official Red Saunders,or Red sandalwood. It is 'a hard, heavy, dark reddish-brown,coarsely splintery wood, deprived of the light-coloredsap-wood; usually met with in chips, or as a coarse,irregular, brownish-red powder, nearly inodorous andnearly tasteless. Red Saunders does not impart any redcolor to water when macerated with it'-(U. S. P.). Otherdye-woods generally communicate their color to water,which is not the case with red saunders; the latter,however, imparts to alkaline solutions, ether, and alcohol,a scarlet color. The alcoholic solution produces withsolutions of lead a violet-colored, with corrosive sublimatea scarlet, and with sulfate of iron a deep-violet, precipitate. | | Constituents : | The coloring principle of Red Saunders is santalicacid (santalin), discovered by Pelletier. It is a red, tasteless,and odorless, crystalline powder, insoluble in water, solublein ether, with yellow color, and in alcohol, with blood-red color(L. Meyer. 1848). It likewise dissolves in alkalies and aceticacid, but not in essential oils. H. Weidel (1869) obtained a similarsubstance, santal (C8H6O3), by extracting the wood with boilingalkaline water, precipitating with hydrochloric acid, and recrystallizingfrom alcohol. The yield was 0.3 per cent. Cazeneuve and Hugounenq(Jahresb. der Pharm., 1887, p. 159; and 1889, p. 127) digestedthe powdered wood with milk of lime, extracted the coloring substancewith ether, and crystallized from alcohol. Carbon disulfide differentiatedthe product obtained into insoluble pterocarpin (C20H16O6) andsoluble homo-pterocarpin (C24H24O6). Both substances are probablyorcin-derivatives (see Lacmus). A small amount of tannin is containedin red Saunders.'Thesestatements have not been evaluated by the Food and DrugAdministration. This product is not intended to diagnose,treat, cure or prevent any disease.' |
|
|
