Sophora. Sophora speciosa, Coral bean.
Sophora. S. speciosa Benth. Coral Bean,— From the poisonous seeds of this leguminous Texan tree, H. C. Wood obtained a volatile liquid alkaloid (sophorine) whose chloride is crystalline (see A. J. P., 1878), and which, according to P. O. Plugge, is identical with cytisine. This same alkaloid probably exists in many species of the genus, as Parsons found a liquid alkaloid in S. sericea Nutt., crazy-weed, which grows in Colorado and Mexico (Rep. Commissioner of Agricult; 1879, and N. R., 1881, 67; see also Kalteyer and Neill, A. J. P., 1866, 465), and Greshoff (P. J., xxii). The latter found a poisonous alkaloid in the leaves of S. tomentosa L., the seeds and roots of which are used in Ceylon and Java as a remedy for cholera. Plugge, however (A. Pharm., 1895), affirms that matrine, the alkaloid discovered by Nagai in S. angustifolia, is distinct from cytisine.
