AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 227 



Anaerobic decompositiou of iiroteiii in seeds of lupines in water or n sugar 

 solutions is entirely independent of the intensity of their intramolecular respi- 

 ration. Both these processes are affected by the dissolved sugar, however, 

 which decreases the former, but increases the latter process. The former, 

 moreover, goes on long after the latter has ceased, even after the seeds have 

 been killed by suffocation. 



It follows, according to the author, that anaerobic decomposition of protein 

 in lupines is an enzymatic process. In the early stages of the experiments 

 albumose and peptones were broken down ; later the more complex proteids. 

 In the living see<ls the protein decomposition appears to be proportional to the 

 time of its duration; after their death, to the square root of the time. Intra- 

 molecular respiration in the glucose solution appears to go on in the lupine 

 seeds alike whether resting or sprouted, which fact is taken to indicate that 

 no new synthesis of zymase occurs during germination ; but in water alone this 

 process is at first much more rapid in the sprouted seeds, which phenomenon 

 is attributed to the hydrolysis of the reserve material in the seeds and not to 

 increase of zymase. Pepsin is also supposed to form during germination. Citric 

 acid added to the solutions was not utllize<l in intramolecular respiration, but 

 appears to decrease it and to shorten its jjoriod. 



The nutrition of some epiphytic Bromeliaceae, C. Picado {Compt. Rend. 

 Acad. Sei. [Paris], lo.'t (1012). Xo. <J, pp. 607-609).— As the result of a study 

 of a number of species of epiphytic bromelias, the author claims that they 

 absorb not only their mineral, but also their proteid and other substances from 

 the vegetable and animal detritus held by their leaves. It is possible that these 

 are the only plants the nutrition of which depends entirely upon the detritus 

 collectetl in the dei)ressions at the base of the leaves. 



On the orig'in of carbon assimilated by plants, L. Cailletet (Compt. Rend. 

 Acad. Sci. [Paris], 152 (1911), No. 19, pp. 1215-1217; a'bs. in Bot. CentbL, 119 

 (1912), A'o. 2, p. 35). — Studies on Adiantum, Aspidistra, and other plants hab- 

 itually growing in rather dense shade are reported, in which it is shown that 

 their photosynthesis was not sufficient to account for the carbon present in their 

 structures. Experiments showed that these plants obtained a part of their 

 carbon from the soil, indicating that they have two sources of carbon, the car- 

 bon dioxid of the air and the organic compounds of the soil. 



Chlorophyll in plants and colloidal chlorophyll, A. Herlitzka (Biochem. 

 Ztschr., 3S (1912), No. 3-Ji, pp. 321-330).— The author has attributed the dis- 

 placement of the absorption bands in spectra of living leaves toward the red 

 end (as compared with those of solutions of chlorophyll in alcohol, etc.) to the 

 supposedly colloidal condition of chlorophyll in a gelatinous solvent, and this is a 

 study of colloidal solutions of chlorophyll prepared from spinach, carried out 

 with the aim of throwing light on the condition of chlorophyll as it exists in 

 living plants. 



He concludes that in expressed leaf sap the chlorophyll is held in a different 

 state from that in case of ordinary solutions, and asserts that it is the same as 

 in colloidal chlorophyll solutions. This colloidal solution shows the presence 

 of a dispersoid, while it is still a question whether this may be said of a solution 

 of chlorophyll in alcohol or acetone. Such colloidal chlorophyll is stated to be 

 an electronegative colloid, unstable and easily forming a flocculent precipitate. 

 The difference between the spectrum of chlorophyll dissolved in alcohol and 

 that of the chlorophyll in leaves, expressed sap, etc., is declared to be attribu- 

 table to the fact that in the latter case the chlorophyll is in the colloidal 

 state not as a genuine colloid, but as a dispersoid. The identity of the chloro- 

 phyll in leaves with that in colloidal solutions is admittedly not yet fully 

 established. 



