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FUCHSINE—FUCINO
273

sandy soil and watered. A temperature of 70° to 75° Fahr. has been found suitable for raising. The seedlings are pricked off into shallow pots or pans, and when 3 in. in height are transferred to 3-in. pots, and are then treated the same as plants from cuttings. Fuchsias may be grafted as readily as camellias, preferably by the splice or whip method, the apex of a young shoot being employed as a scion; but the easiest and most usual method of propagation is by cuttings. The most expeditious way to procure these is to put plants in heat in January, and to take their shoots when 3 in. in length. For summer flowering in England they are best made about the end of August, and should be selected from the shortest-jointed young wood. They root readily in a compost of loam and silver-sand if kept close and sprinkled for a short time. In from two to three weeks they may be put into 3-in. pots containing a compost of equal parts of rich loam, silver-sand and leaf-mould. They are subsequently moved from the frame or bed, first to a warm and shady, and then to a more airy part of the greenhouse. In January a little artificial heat may be given, to be gradually increased as the days lengthen. The side-shoots are generally pruned when they have made three or four joints, and for bushy plants the leader is stopped soon after the first potting. Care is taken to keep the plants as near the glass as possible, and shaded from bright sunshine, also to provide them plentifully with water, except at the time of shifting, when the roots should be tolerably dry. For the second potting a suitable soil is a mixture of well-rotted cow-dung or old hotbed mould with leaf-mould and sandy peat, and to promote drainage a little peat-moss may be placed immediately over the crocks in the lower part of the pot. Weak liquid manure greatly promotes the advance of the plants, and should be regularly supplied twice or thrice a week during the flowering season. After this, water is gradually withheld from them, and they may be placed in the open air to ripen their wood.

Among the more hardy or half-hardy plants for inside borders are varieties of the Chilean species, F. macrostemma (or F. magellanica), a shrub 6 to 12 ft. high with a scarlet calyx, such as F. m. globosa, F. m. gracilis; one of the most graceful and hardy of these, a hybrid F. riccartoni, was raised at Riccarton, near Edinburgh, in 1830. For inside culture may be mentioned F. boliviana (Bolivia), 2 to 4 ft. high, with rich crimson flowers with a trumpet-shaped tube; F. corymbiflora (Peru), 4 to 6 ft. high, with scarlet flowers nearly 2 in. long in long terminal clusters; F. fulgens (Mexico), 4 to 6 ft., with drooping apical clusters of scarlet flowers; F. microphylla (Central America), with small leaves and small scarlet funnel-shaped flowers, the petals deep red; F. procumbens (New Zealand), a pretty little creeper, the small flowers of which are succeeded by oval magenta-crimson berries which remain on for months; and F. splendens (Mexico), 6 ft. high, with very showy scarlet and green flowers. But these cannot compare in beauty or freedom of blossom with the numerous varieties raised by gardeners. The nectar of fuchsia flowers has been shown to contain nearly 78% of cane sugar, the remainder being fruit sugar. The berries of some fuchsias are subacid or sweet and edible. From certain species a dye is obtainable. The so-called “native fuchsias” of southern and eastern Australia are plants of the genus Correa, natural order Rutaceae.


FUCHSINE, or Magenta, a red dyestuff consisting of a mixture of the hydrochlorides or acetates of pararosaniline and rosaniline. It was obtained in 1856 by J. Natanson (Ann., 1856, 98, p. 297) by the action of ethylene chloride on aniline, and by A. W. Hofmann in 1858 from aniline and carbon tetrachloride. It is prepared by oxidizing “aniline for red” (a mixture of aniline and ortho- and para-toluidine) with arsenic acid (H. Medlock, Dingler’s Poly. Jour., 1860, 158, p. 146); by heating aniline for red with nitrobenzene, concentrated hydrochloric acid and iron (Coupier, Ber., 1873, 6, p. 423); or by condensing formaldehyde with aniline and ortho-toluidine and oxidizing the mixture. It forms small crystals, showing a brilliant green reflex, and is soluble in water and alcohol with formation of a deep red solution. It dyes silk, wool and leather direct, and cotton after mordanting with tannin and tartar emetic (see Dyeing). An aqueous solution of fuchsine is decolorized on the addition of sulphurous acid, the easily soluble fuchsine sulphurous acid being formed. This solution is frequently used as a test reagent for the detection of aldehydes, giving, in most cases, a red coloration on the addition of a small quantity of the aldehyde.

The constitution of the fuchsine bases (pararosaniline and rosaniline) was determined by E. and O. Fischer in 1878 (Ann., 1878, 194, p. 242); A. W. Hofmann having previously shown that oxidation of pure aniline alone or of pure toluidine yielded no fuchsine, whilst oxidation of a mixture of aniline and para-toluidine gave rise to the fine red dyestuff para-fuchsine (pararosaniline hydrochloride)

CH3·C6H4NH2+2C6H5NH2+3O = HO·C(C6H4NH2)2+2H2O.
Colour base (pararosaniline).
HO·C(C6H4NH2)3·HCl = H2O+(H2N·C6H4)2C : C6H4 : NH2Cl.
Pararosaniline hydrochloride.

A. Rosenstiehl (Jahres., 1869, p. 693) found also that different rosanilines were obtained according to whether ortho- or para-toluidine was oxidized with aniline; and he gave the name rosaniline to the one obtained from aniline and ortho-toluidine, reserving the term pararosaniline for the other. E. and O. Fischer showed that these compounds were derivatives of triphenylmethane and tolyldiphenylmethane respectively. Pararosaniline was reduced to the corresponding leuco compound (paraleucaniline), from which by diazotization and boiling with alcohol, the parent hydrocarbon was obtained

(H2N·C5H4)2C:C6H4:NH2Cl→HC(C6H4NH2·HCl)3→HC(C6H4N2Cl3)
Pararosaniline hydrochloride. Paraleucaniline.

→HC(C6H5)3.
Triphenylmethane.

The reverse series of operations was also carried out by the Fischers, triphenylmethane being nitrated, and the nitro compound then reduced to triaminotriphenylmethane or paraleucaniline, which on careful oxidation is converted into the dyestuff. A similar series of reactions was carried out with rosaniline, which was shown to be the corresponding derivative of tolyldiphenylmethane.

The free pararosaniline, C19H19N3O, and rosaniline, C20H21N3O, may be obtained by precipitating solutions of their salts with a caustic alkali, colourless precipitates being obtained, which crystallize from hot water in the form of needles or plates. The position of the amino groups in pararosaniline was determined by the work of H. Caro and C. Graebe (Ber., 1878, 11, p. 1348) and of E. and O. Fischer (Ber., 1880, 13, p. 2204) as follows: Nitrous acid converts pararosaniline into aurin, which when superheated with water yields para-dioxybenzophenone. As the hydroxyl groups in aurin correspond to the amino groups in pararosaniline, two of these in the latter compound must be in the para position. The third is also in the para position; for if benzaldehyde be condensed with aniline, condensation occurs in the para position, for the compound formed may be converted into para-dioxybenzophenone,

C6H5CHO→C6H5CH(C6H4NH2)2→C6H5CH(C6H4OH)2→CO(C6H4OH)2;

but if para-nitrobenzaldehyde be used in the above reaction and the resulting nitro compound NO2·C6H4·CH(C6H4NH2)2 be reduced, then pararosaniline is the final product, and consequently the third amino group occupies the para position. Many derivatives of pararosaniline and rosaniline are known, in which the hydrogen atoms of the amino groups are replaced by alkyl groups; this has the effect of producing a blue or violet shade, which becomes deeper as the number of groups increases (see Dyeing).


FUCINO, LAGO DI [Lat. Lacus Fucinus], a lake bed of the Abruzzi, Italy, in the province of Aquila, 2 m. E. of the town of Avezzano. The lake was 37 m. in circumference and 65 ft. deep. From the lack of an outlet, the level of the lake was subject to great variations, often fraught with disastrous consequences. As early as A.D. 52 the emperor Claudius, realizing a project of Julius Caesar, constructed a tunnel 31/2 m. long, with 40 shafts at intervals, by which the surplus waters found an outlet to the Liris (or Garigliano). No less than 30,000 workmen were employed for eleven years in driving this tunnel. In the following reign the tunnel was allowed to fall into disrepair, but was repaired by Trajan. When, however, it finally went out of use is uncertain. The various attempts made to reopen it from 1240 onwards were unsuccessful. By 1852 the lake had gradually risen until it was 30 ft. above its original level, and had become a source of danger to the surrounding countryside. A company undertook to drain it on condition of becoming proprietors of the site when dry; in 1854, however, the rights and privileges were purchased by Prince Giulio Torlonia (d. 1886), the great Roman banker, who carried on the work at his own expense until, in 1876, the lake was finally drained at the cost of some £1,700,000. The