LAUEACE^ 149
mitted to histological examination by Dr. Josef Moeller in 1898. He
describes the wood as beavy, bard, and easily split, tbe fresh surface
yellowish, but redder when older, with the vessels and medullary rays
visible to the unaided eye, but with the annual rings of wood not percep-
tible. The odour is that of rose and citron. Under the microscope the
flinuous medullary rays are seen to consist of one or two rows of cells.
The wood consists of strongly thickened woody fibres in which the vessels
occur in groups of 1 to 3, often surrounded by tracheids. The chambered
parenchymatous fibres are here and there widened out into oil cavities,
containing lemon yellow drops of oil. The cells of the medullary rays
are mostly filled with violet-coloured amorphous masses, but in some
there are yellowish or greenish globules which are soluble in alcohol, and
probably contain essential oil. A characteristic feature of the wood is
that the vessels often have internal cells or tyloses with unusually thick
solerotised walls. The wood resembles that of the Mexican lignaloes in
the grouping and form of the vessels, and in the scattered parenchyma
containing volatile oil, but in the structure of the bark, the character of
the cork cells, the form and distribution of the bast fibres, and the occur-
rence of the oil cells and raphides, it is that of the Lauracece.
" Dr. Moeller examined the wood of several genera of the Lauracece
and found that it came nearest to that of the Ocotea.
" It thus appears from the researches made by the German botanists,
and Dr. J. Moeller, that there can be little doubt that the Licari kanali
tree is the Ocotea caudata, Mez. It should be noted, however, that
Moeller is in error in using the name Bois de Eose femelle for Ocotea
caitdata, and that it should be Bois de Eose male according to Guibourt;
the Bois de Eose femelle being that of Protium altissimum, March."
The average yield of oil from the wood is 1 per cent., and the pure
oil has the following characters :—
Specific gravity 0-870 to 0'880
Optical rotation - 10° „ - 20°
Refractive index 1-4610 „ 1'4635
Acid value 0 „ 15
Ester „ 3 „ 7
On acetylation for the prolonged period of 4 to 6 hours in three to
four times its volume of xylene (since linalol decomposes by acetylation
without such dilution), the oil shows a total linalol value of 60 to 90 per
cent, or over. It is soluble in 2 volumes of 70 per cent, alcohol.
The principal constituent of the oil is Z-linalol, which was originally
' described under the name licareol.
Schimmel & Co.^1 have shown that geraniol and J-terpineol are present
in the oil as well as small quantities of cineol, dipentene, furfurol, and
(probably) isovaleric aldehyde, and Eoure-Bertrand Fils
2
have isolated
methyl-heptenone and nerol from it. The last-named give the following
as the composition of the oil:—
Methyl-heptenone traces
Minalol 905 per cent.
d-terpineol 5*3 „
Goraniol 2-4 „
. Nerol 1-2 „
On fractionation the oil behaves as follows:—
1
Report, April, 1909, 68.
2
Bulletin, October, 1909, 40.