372 Prof. J. R. Green. On the 



Detmer,* in 1880, in criticising Miiritz's results, quoted above, 

 endeavours to reconcile the decomposition suggested by the latter 

 with the older statements of Sachs as to the origination of starch at 

 the expense of the oil. He suggests that the glycerine may be trans- 

 formed into certain unknown bodies, and that the fatty acid may be 

 the immediate antecedent of the starch, giving as a possible explana- 

 tion of the transformation the equation 



C 18 H 34 3 + 270 = 2C 6 H 10 5 + 6C0 2 +7H 2 0. 



He had himself, in 1875, published some analyses of hempseed before 

 and after germination, showing that with a disappearance of about 

 16 parts of oil there was a formation of nearly 9 parts of starch. 



In his later work, in 1882, Sachsf somewha,t modifies the views 

 originally propounded by him in 1859, though still adhering in the 

 main to his hypothesis that at any rate the greater part of the oil is 

 transformed directly to starch and sugar. He remarks upon the 

 occurrence of oil drops in considerable quantity in the parenchyma of 

 the roots and shoot-axis of the seedlings of Ricinus and other plants, 

 and admitting the possibility of the accuracy of Schiitzenberger's 

 suggestion of ferment action, he thinks that these fat globules may 

 be due to the recombination of the fatty acid and glycerine, which 

 may travel separately from cell to cell, recombining under certain 

 conditions. Such a process presents a certain similarity with the 

 movements of transitory starch. 



On the hypothesis of ferment action he suggests that the ferment 

 is formed in the cotyledons and excreted from them into the endo- 

 sperm. 



During all this period, our ideas of the actual transformation of the 

 fatty matter have rested upon hypothesis rather than experiment. 

 Sachs's first work only noted the coincident disappearance of oil and 

 appearance of starch. He does not say that the two processes go 

 on together in the same cells nor even in the same regions of the 

 seed, the starch in Ricinus appearing most copiously in the embryo, 

 the oil vanishing from the endosperm. Nor has the ferment, 

 suggested by Schiitzenberger, been identified, the chief argument for 

 its existence having been derived from Hoppe-Seyler's description of 

 a very similar change in the fats during pancreatic digestion by 

 animals. J Nor have we, beyond Detmer's hypothesis already quoted, 

 any attempt to trace the fate of the glycerine and fatty acids formed. 

 The whole question of the mode of the absorption of the fatty 

 reserves of the endosperm by the embryo and their way of passing 



* Op. cit. 



t Sachs, ' Vorlesungen iiber Pflanzen-Physiologie,' 1882. English Edition. 

 Ward, 1887, p. 347. 



I Det.mer, op. cit., p. 338 j Vines, ' Physiology of Plants,' p. 190. 



