292 Mary Davies Swartz, 



isolated by them from the seeds of Phoenix canariensis. Herissey 

 (253) has been able to show that seeds of such legumes as luzerne, 

 fenugrec, and common genet have, at least at the time of germination, 

 ferments capable of transforming mannans — and galactans — into 

 their corresponding sugars. Experiments in vitro show that they are 

 not limited to action upon the seeds by whose embryos they are pro- 

 duced, but act on the reserve-cellulose of seeds from very distinct 

 groups of plants. However, the luzerne ferment does not digest all 

 mannans and galactans; it will hydrolyze the mannans of the tubers 

 of the Orchis family (and commercial salep prepared from them) , but 

 not those of the albumen of palm seeds. 



Griiss (251) has also shown that the enzyme of the date endosperm 

 hydrolyzes starch, although this does not occur in the date seed, and 

 that malt diastase works on a-mannan (the soluble mannan of date 

 seeds, according to Griiss) which does not occur in the barley endo- 

 sperm. Griiss considers diastatic enzymes a group working not only 

 on starch, but also on hemicelluloses. Herissey thinks that diastase 

 and seminase are found together in varying proportions in barley, 

 legumes, carob seeds, etc., and that neither is a simple ferment, but a 

 "superposition de ferments," and defines "seminase" as a "ferment 

 or group of soluble ferments, causing the transformation of the car- 

 bohydrates of horny albumens of the seeds of Leguminosae into as- 

 similable sugars." Gatin (247) has made further researches upon the 

 nature of seminase, and states that during the germination of certain 

 seeds whose reserve is in the form of mannan, the presence of mannose 

 is exceptional, but dextrose occurs in abundance. This phenomenon 

 he attributes to a "manno-isomerase," which transforms the mannose, 

 as fast as formed by the seminase, into dextrose. Experiments in 

 vitro seem to indicate that this is a soluble ferment. 



MANNANASES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



There are only a few instances on record of mansases occurring in 

 lower animals. Bierry and Giaja (228, 229) found that the hepato- 

 pancreatic juice of Helix pomatia was capable of producing mannose 

 from extracts of carob seeds and salep; that of Astacus fluviatilis, Ho- 

 marus vulgaris, and Maja sqiiinado, from the ivory nut {Phytelepas ma- 

 crocarpa), the two latter hydrolyzing it at ordinary room temperature. 

 On the other hand, the mannans of fenugrec and luzerne were hydro- 

 lyzed with difficulty, or not at all, by very pure gastro-intestinal 

 juice. No mannanase was found by Strauss (275) in the larvae and 



