PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 39 



leaves. Here are illustrations of seed-like^fruits, most likely to be mis- 

 taken for seeds. They are small fruits, containing a seed inside. Of such 

 are all of our true grains, like wheat, corn, rye, oats, rice and barley ; also 

 the seed-like germs of the dandelion, thistle, and sunflower; of butter- 

 cups, maple, elms, chestnuts, and acorns. 



Fruits usually have one or more jackets or coats over their seeds. 



The most wonderful thing in every seed is its living protoplasm, which 

 may remain dormant, ready to manifest itself in growth, after a long period 

 of rest, whenever all the conditions are favorable. The food of seeds is 

 starch, aleurone, protoplasm, cellulose, inulin, oil, etc. Here were shown 

 some of the forms of granules of starch as seen in potatoes, wheat, barley, 

 corn, buckwheat, euphorbia, and other plants. A study of these is neces- 

 sary to enable one to detect adulterations in many kinds of food. 



Heat, moisture, and oxygen swell the seed and start it to growing. 

 Complicated changes take place in the food materials. 



In getting out of their coverings some seeds perform queer antics, very 

 interesting to study. 



The food stored inside the seed-leaves, or at one side or surrounding the 

 young plant, gradually becomes soluble and is all used. The substance is 

 absorbed by the young plant on all sides, and not through any special 

 mouths or organs. The young plant fairly rolls in the fat of the land. 



In germinating barley, for example, the eel) walls of the endosperm 

 near the embryo disappear gradually, further and further out, disintegrat- 

 ing the starch which slowly turns to sugar. 



The cellulose of the cell walls is dissolved through the agency of a fer- 

 ment called diastase, analogous to the changes produced on milk by the 

 rennet in the stomach of a calf. 



I quote from the Journal of the Royal Agricultural society of 1890, page 

 508: 



In the barley, the ferments are formed in the matrix of protoplasm. Besides giving 

 rise to the ferments, the protoplasm is the seat of other chemical activity, processes of 

 gentle oxidization and reduction taking place there as long as it is living. The barley 

 grain, then, contains a living embryo, surrounded by a store of reserve food materials 

 which can be called into the nutritive processes only by the action of the embryo, which 

 has, in part, to secrete the ferments necessary for the digestive processes. These 

 changes comprised in germination are set up only when the seed is exposed to moist- 

 ure and warmth. Why is it necessary to thus wait? Why should not the changes in 

 the reserve materials follow at once on the maturity of the seed, and so cause the 

 growth to go on without any resting period? The answer to this turns on the condition 

 of the ferments in the resting seed. If these were in an active condition there, as they 

 are in the germinating seed, there would seem to be no reason for the suspension of 

 activity. The ferments do not make their appearance till termination begins, and the 

 commencement of this process is really dependent on their development. From what 

 do they arise? The ferment is in the cells of the seed, but not in active condition. To 

 put it in other words, the seed, before germination, contains in its cells something, 

 which, though not the active ferment, can be readily transformed into it by warming 

 with a little weak acid. To this something, which can be extracted from the resting 

 seed as easily as the ferment can be from the germinating one, the name " mother of 

 ferment" ov zymogen has been given. The resting seed, therefore, differs from the 

 germinating one in containing zymogen instead of ferment. On the outset germination 

 is brought about by the conversion of the former into the latter. The condition of the 

 resting seed is neutral, neither acid nor alkaline, whilst the contents of the cells are 

 dry. The change in the reaction of the seed, from neutral to faintly acid, can be easily 

 seen. The vegetable acids so formed convert the zymogen prtsent in the cells into the 

 active ferment, and at once the conversion and transportation of the nutritive materials 

 toward the seats of growth or of absorption set in. The reserve materials are insolu- 

 ble, but are changed and made soluble during germination. The young plant absorbs 

 and uses the decomposing or changed reserved food. 



