The wax constituents of the apple cuticle

IN the introduction to the preceding paper dealing with the synthesis and crystal spacings of certain higher paraffins, alcohols and ketones, it was pointed out that the object of the work was to enable a more thorough investigation of the chemical constitution of various plant waxes, especially leaf waxes, to be made than had hitherto been possible. The leaf waxes to which it was hoped particular attention could be given were those derived from various forage grasses, and preliminary investigations showed that these differed from that found by Channon and Chibnall [1929] in the cabbage leaf in that they con- tained large amounts of alcohols instead of a paraffin and ketone and were therefore not immediately amenable to the separation used by these authors. As a preliminary to work on the grasses it was necessary to devote some time to experiments, the aim of which was to separate fairly completely the following classes of compounds, viz. paraffins, ketones, primary alcohols and secondary alcohols, and because a survey of the literature suggested that these might all occur in the wax obtained from apple peel, that material, which can readily be obtained in quantity, was used.