212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



THE COLORING MATTER OF THE ARIL OF CELASTRUS SCANDENS. 



BY IDA A. KELLER. 



The presence of different pigments manufactured by the vege- 

 table organism has forced the plant world upon the attention of the 

 human race from time immemorial. If we submit the colored 

 parts to microscopical examination we are usually confronted by one 

 of two distinct cases. 



Firstly, we may find that the pigment, instead of pervading the 

 entire cell, is found only in certain variously shaped bodies wliich 

 are more or less regularly scattered through the cell contents. The 

 best known illustration of this kind is to be found in ordinary 

 leaves, the green color being confined to the chlorophyll granule. 

 Secondly, if we examine other parts of plants we may find that the 

 coloring matter is distributed uniformly throughout the cell sap. 

 The blue flower of the Grape Hyacinth may serve as one of the 

 many illustrations of the latter case. Wherever fixed and definite 

 portions of protoplasm subserve a special function within the plant 

 cell, these may be considered as parts of a unit and they may be 

 termed organs of the cell. In addition, then, to the nucleus we may 

 find various other organs as, for example, the colored bodies just 

 referred to. A distinction must be made between such differentiated 

 portions of the protoplasm and the products which are the result of 

 their activity, between the colorless protoplasmic matrix and the 

 colored product which makes it conspicuous. If we observe e. g., a 

 living cell of a leaf of Elodea Canadensis we find as organs of the 

 protoplasmic contents the nucleus and the chlorophyll granules ; as 

 a product of the latter, chlorophyll and finally starch as a result of 

 the action of the chlorophyll in response tosatisfactory external con- 

 ditions. Such conditions are a certain amount of heat, light, moisture 

 and the absence of any injurious factors which might impede the 

 various operations manifested in life activity. 



In dealing with the products of this activity we come to a problem 

 of great complexity. It is true that certain phenomena as 

 witnessed in the vegetable cell can be explained by known prin- 

 ciples of physics and chemistry, and that many substances for which 

 mankind was formerly dependent on the vegetable organism are now 

 manufactured in the chemical laboratory. I need only recall the 



