118 STARCH ITS FOKMS. [BOOK i. 



Ed. xxxii.) and a few unimportant additions of Meyen in his 

 Vegetable Physiology, constitute all that has as yet been 

 published on the various forms of starch in plants. Among 

 others the question seems to have been neglected, for, from 

 what is set forth in some of our latest works, viz. that " starch 

 appears in the form of small circular bodies " (Endlicher and 

 Unger, Elements of Botany), it is evident that the writers 

 have neither made observations themselves, nor read anything 

 about the matter. The forms of starch are exceedingly 

 various, and are often so characteristic that, as Fritsche has 

 already observed, plants, or at least their orders and genera, 

 may be easily determined by them. The following are the 

 forms I am acquainted with : 



I. AMORPHOUS STARCH. Hitherto I have found amorphous 



starch (as paste) only in the cells of two Phanero- 

 gamous plants, namely, in the seeds of Cardamomum 

 minus and in the bark of Jamaica Sarsaparilla. It is 

 probable that in the last plant heating in the fire has 

 thus strangely changed the starch, of which there is 

 generally an abundance in Sarsaparilla. 



For the most part this paste is found in the anomalous 

 red roots, more seldom in the yellow ones, which are not 

 as yet distinguished in the trade as substitutes for 

 Jamaica Sarsaparilla. 



II. SIMPLE GRAINS. In most plants the grains are solitary, 



clusters of two or three appearing among the others as 

 rare exceptions. 



They may be further divided thus : 



I. Roundish Grains. 



A. Central hole (Fritsche's kern), altogether wanting. 



1. Very small roundish grains occur nearly everywhere in 

 the vegetable kingdom, occasionally contained in cells, 

 for example, in Carrots, in Cambium in the winter, 

 in leaves as centres of Chlorophyl, &c. 



2. Larger, irregular, knobby, often stunted polygonal 

 grains, in the bulbous buds of Saxifraga granulata, in the 

 corms of Ranunculus Ficaria. 



