Sarcocolla. Penaea sarcocolla, Penaea mucronata.

Sarcocolla. Sarcocolle, Fr. Fleischleimgummi, Fischleimgummi, G.—A peculiar vegetable product, exuding spontaneously from Penaea Sarcocolla L. (now P. fulcata L.), and P. mucronata L. (Fam. Penaeaceae), small shrubs, growing at the Cape of Good Hope, in Ethiopia, Arabia, etc. Sarcocolla occurs in the form of small, roundish, irregular grains, somewhat spongy, sometimes agglutinated in masses, at times admixed with fine hairs, friable, opaque or semi-transparent, of a yellowish or brownish-red color, inodorous unless heated, when they have an agreeable odor, and of a peculiar, bitter, sweetish, and acrid taste. Sarcocolla, according to Pelletier, consists of 65.3 per cent. of a peculiar substance, considered by Thomson as holding an intermediate place between gum and sugar, and called sarcocollin, C₁₃H₂₃O₆, 4.6 of gum, 3.3 of a gelatinous matter having some analogy with bassorin, and 26.8 of lignin, etc. It is said to be purgative, but at the same time to produce serious inconvenience by its acrid properties. The Arabian physicians used it internally, and by the ancients it was employed as an external application to wounds and ulcers, under the idea that it possessed the property of agglutinating the flesh, whence its name.

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, was edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others.