

PREFACE 



No single treatise in recent years has attempted to correlate the available 

 information as to the various components included under the classification 

 of lipids. vSuch a work is obviously desirable, since all the constituents so 

 listed are associated to some extent in plant and animal tissues. Inasmuch 

 as the present work is intentionally slanted at the biological interpretations, 

 a consideration of all the lipid-like components present in the animal body 

 is imperative. 



The present volume is the first of two dealing with lipids. As is evident 

 from the Table of Contents, Volume I includes only the chemical approach 

 to the subject. Volume II will be concerned exclusively with the bio- 

 chemical and nutritional implications. 



In this day of specialization, when many texts are compilations of sec- 

 tions prepared by masters in the several fields discussed, one may question 

 the advisability of the preparation by a single author of a monograph on a 

 wide field such as the chemistry of the lipids. An author attempting such 

 a task can obviouslj^ not be an authority in all fields. Therefore, a book of 

 this nature must necessarily be less involved and more understandable to 

 readers Avho, also, are not specialists in the individual fields. The style 

 should be more uniform and the book as a whole more cohesive when pre- 

 pared by a single writer. 



In this work, plant and animal species have been identified, insofar as is 

 possible, by their systematic as well as by their common names. Since 

 some confusion does exist in classifications, and in the spelling of the system- 

 atic names, an attempt has been made to achieve as much uniformity as 

 possible. 



The primary authority consulted for plant names has been the publication of the 

 American Joint Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature (H. P. Kelsey and W. 

 A. Dajiion) on Standardized Plant Names, McFarland Co., Harrisburg, 1942. If 

 the desired information was not available in this compilation, the Standard Cyclo- 

 pedia of Horticulture by L. H. Bailey, Volumes I-III, Macniillan, New York, 1947. 

 and Hortus Second, by L. H. Bailey and E. Z. Bailey, Macmillan, New York, 1947, 

 were consulted. Other useful sources of information included the following: J. D. 

 Hooker and B. D. Jackson, Index Kewensis Plantarum Phanerogamarum, Parts I- 

 IV, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1893-1895, and the supplementary volumes, I-X, 

 compiled by A. W. Hill and E. J. Salisbury, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 190&-1940; 

 L. H. Bailey, Manual of Cultivated Plants, Macmillan, New York, 1944; G. S. West, 

 Algae, Volume I, Fresh-Water Algae, Cambridge Botanical Handbooks, Cambridge 

 University Press, 1916; and two works by G. AI. Smith, Fresh-Water Algae of the 



