[Vor. 5 
274 ANNALS OF THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 
ing,—on the hypothesis that such airing has caused an in- 
creased conversion of zymogen to enzyme in the ease of the 
etherized corms, because the data for the other carbohydrates 
show values direetly opposed to dextrin in this respect. In 
view of the relation of dextrin to starch as an intermediate 
produet of the hydrolysis of the latter, the results of the 
dextrin series are extremely puzzling. 
In a eonsideration of the figures for sucrose it should again 
be noted that a small amount of acid was added to all sub- 
strates in order to make conditions for invertase action more 
favorable. With this in view, an additional control without 
acid was used. The latter indicates that in the absence of in- 
hibiting factors, over 71 per cent of the resulting inversion was 
due to the acid added. That there were inhibiting factors of 
some nature appears from a study of the remaining figures in 
the sucrose columns. The relation between the dispersions 
from etherized and unetherized tissue is apparent, although 
here also, as in dextrin, there is a contradiction between the 
two halves of the series. The only plausible explanation lies 
in the assumption either that no invertase was present in 
the corms, and that the organic constituents of the protein- 
enzyme complex merely acted as a buffer on the hydrolytic 
activity of the hydrochloric acid added to the substrate, or 
that the invertase present in the corms was either not ex- 
tracted or was inactivated by the methods employed. The 
latter assumption appears even less warranted than the first, 
since the experience of many students of invertase shows that 
it is one of the enzymes most readily extracted by water. 
With respect to the action of the dispersion upon the mal- 
tose substrate it appears reasonably clear that there has been 
no maltase activity, and it is possible that the enzyme was 
not present. In this case, however, there is experimental 
evidence that lends support to the belief that the maltase 
present may have been destroyed in the process of extraction, 
since Daish (’16) found that the maltase present in air-dried 
germinated barley was destroyed by extraction with water 
and subsequent precipitation with alcohol. The figures for 
inulin show the same general relations of enzyme from ether- 
