The Plant Alkaloids

Abstract

IN spite of the fact that modern fashions in chemical research have inclined towards the hormones and vitamins, much work has been accomplished during the past twenty years in the field of the plant alkaloids. This fact is reflected in the third edition of Henry's "Plant Alkaloids", which to all intents and purposes is a completely new book. It bears little relationship to the second edition published in 1924, although the arrangement of the material on the basis of a chemical classification according to the nuclear structure has been retained. Slight deviations from this plan occur where important biological relationships would be obscured by a slavish adherence to such a plan. On the other hand, the reader is warned against placing too much reliance on such relationships in considering possible structures of new alkaloids with the reminder that sparteine, long known as the characteristic alkaloid of broom tops (Leguminosæ), has also been found to occur in Anabasis aphylla (Cheniopodiaceæ) and as an associate of chelidonine in the greater celandine (Papaveraceæ).

The Plant Alkaloids

By Dr. Thomas Anderson Henry. Third edition. Pp viii + 689. (London: J. and A. Churchill, Ltd., 1939.) 42s.