noun
definition
A polysaccharide gum, extracted from several species of leguminous plants of the genus Astragalus, formerly used medicinally and now as a food additive. Also more fully gum tragacanth.
Examples of tragacanth in a Sentence
Gum kuteera resembles in appearance gum tragacanth, for which the attempt has occasionally been made to substitute it.
This property is usually obtained by mixing soft and hard soaps, or, more rarely, by adding gum tragacanth to a hard soap. In the textile trades the wool scourer employs a neutral olive-oil soap, or, on account of its cheapness, a neutral curd or curd mottled brand; the cotton cleanser, on the other hand, uses an alkaline soap, but for cleaning printed cottons a neutral olive-oil curd soap is used, for, in this case, free alkali and resin are objectionable; olive-oil soap, free from caustic alkali, but often with sodium carbonate, is also used in cleansing silk fibres, although hard soaps free from resin are frequently employed for their cheapness.
The majority of plant specimens are most suitably fastened on paper by a mixture of equal parts of gum tragacanth and gum arabic made into a thick paste with water.
For attaching it to the paper a strong mucilage of gum tragacanth, containing an eighth of its weight of spirit of wine, answers best.
The British pharmacopoeia contains the mucilages of acacia and tragacanth.
The most important vegetable productions are - cereals, cotton, gum tragacanth, liquorice, olive oil, opium, rice, saffron, salep, tobacco and yellow berries.
Manna and gum tragacanth are also collected.
Among the valuable vegetable products forming articles of export are various gums and dyes, the most important being gum tragacanth, which exudes from the astragalus plant in the hilly region from Kurdistan in the north-west to Kermn in the south-east.
Of dye-yielding shrubs and plants camwood and indigo may be mentioned; of those whence gum is obtained the copal, acacia and African tragacanth (Sterculia tragacantha).
Gum tragacanth is used in calico-printing as a thickener of colours and mordants; in medicine as a demulcent and vehicle for insoluble powders, and as an excipient in pills; and feltsetting and mending beetles and other insect specimens.
Gum of Bassora, from Bassora or Bussorah in Asia, is sometimes imported into the London market under the name of the hog tragacanth.
It is insipid, crackles between the teeth, occurs in variable-sized pieces, is tough, of a yellowish-white colour, and opaque, and has properties similar to gum tragacanth.
Under the name of Caramania gum it is mixed with inferior kinds of gum tragacanth before exportation.
The printed emulsion surface is water absorbent and ideal for gum tragacanth which leaves less of a smear than most adhesives.
The substances used to adulterate opium are grape-juice thickened with flour, fig-paste, liquorice, half-dried apricots, inferior gum tragacanth and sometimes clay or pieces of lead or other metals.
Gum tragacanth is made from the dried sap of several species of Middle Eastern legumes.
Gum tragacanth can be wielded as a stabilizer and, when used, it improves food texture.