STRUCTURAL FACTORS IN POLYMERIZATION 63 



does Pauling, the super-compressed eugenol may be in a reversible slate of polymeriza- 

 tion. 2) There is no lignin in starch plastid membranes as these are, presumably, not 

 polysaccharide in nature, hence not suitable as matrices, in fact, one may suppose that 

 they would prevent starch from becoming lignified if plastids co-existed with a heavily 

 lignified cell wall. I rather think that the starch would be long since depleted in the 

 aging cells undergoing lignification. 



Dr. McLaren: What range of molecular weights do you liiul for your synthetic 

 lignins? 



Dr. Siegel: Published figures for isolated derivatives of native lignins range from 

 1,000 to 11,000, with values on the order of t,ooo, probably representing a pentamer, in 

 greatest abundance. Conceivably a fundamental polymeric unit may exist as a primary 

 product which secondarily is built into a larger, randomly arrayed three-dimensional en- 

 tity. Using ethanolic-HCl as a solubilizing agent, a terminal degradation product falling 

 in the range of 650-700 is obtained. Taking account of ethoxy groups derived from 

 the solvent, a trimer of oxidized eugenol is indicated. Considering the terminal nature 

 of this product, it is reasonable to propose a minimum DP of 6 for the original 

 product. 



