38 KozLOWSKi ; Primary Synthesis of Proteids 



the seed and is used to build up the protoplasm of growing parts, 

 as shown by the experiments of Boussingault and recently it has 

 been confirmed by Laskowski, Fleury and Detnier, that when a 

 seedling does not receive nitrogen from outside, the quantity of 

 that element is not changed during the germination. In other 

 words the plant does not lose its nitrogen. 



In the same conditions as sprouting seeds are the young buds 

 of plants ; their tissues are formed from the plastic materials gath- 

 ered by the plant during the foregoing summer. Thus Borodin 

 found asparagin and sometimes tyrosin in the buds of many 

 trees and shrubs, especially in those which are developed from 

 twigs cut in winter and grown in dull light, indicating that light 

 impedes directly the formation of asparagin : but Pfeffer obtained 

 the same result when cultivating lupine in light, but in an atmos- 

 phere free from carbonic acid. Such plants were very rich in as- 

 paragin. 



There is, moreover, no doubt that the accumulation of asparagin 

 is connected with another fact, the lack of carbohydrates. In the 

 described experiments this was due either to the cutting off of a 

 twig (freed of leaves and thus unable to assimilate) from a tree, 

 containing reserve carbohydrates, or to the suspension of as- 

 similation through darkness or lack of carbonic acid. In plants, 

 w^hich are growing in normal conditions, the asparagin docs not 

 accumulate, for it is at once combined with the produced carbo- 

 hydrates to form proteids. This inference is confirmed by the in- 

 *vestigations of Schultze and Uhrich,* who found that the large part 

 (34-47.7^) of nitrogen in the roots of the beet [Beta vulgaris) is 

 contained In amides (specially in glutamin and asparagin), while 

 during the growth of the leaves a large portion of these bodies is 

 consumed to form the proteids for these organs. 



Emmerling gives as the result of the first of a series of inves- 

 tigations, which he undertook in this line on a large scale, the 

 .following statement : ** The parts of plants growing energetically 

 contain more amide than parts which are older and already de- 

 veloped.'' f 



At last experiments with seeds growing in darkness complete 



Landwirtscliaftliche Versucbsstationcn, 18 : (1875) ^^^^ 20 : (1877). 

 ■\ Lnndw. Versuchsstationen, 24 : 153. 1880. 



