266 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



are probably formed from the complex albuminoids, and in 

 fungus plants, which are especially rich in nitrogenous com- 

 pounds, alkaloids are common. 



It has been generally held that alkaloids, with resins and 

 some other compounds occurring in plants, are waste products, 

 but this cannot be accepted as final. The researches l of Selmi, 

 Gautier, Etard, Brieger, and others have broken down an 

 imaginary distinction between plants and animals, which is of 

 interest in this connection. They show that the production of 

 alkaloids is a general function common to all living cells, 

 whether they be bacteria or the cells of living animals. 



In the animals, with their excretory functions, these poisonous 

 substances would be readily eliminated from the system; but it 

 seems to me that in the absence of homologous organs in plants 

 these compounds might be used again for the building up of 

 tissue and prevent the accumulation of products detrimental to 

 plants, and the recent investigations of Kellner 2 on the com- 

 position of tea-leaves show that this view is not unlikely, for he 

 states that the non- albuminoid nitrogen is almost wholly absent 

 during the latter stages of growth, being found as theine; in the 

 seeds the albumen has increased, but no theine is found; thus 

 the author believes that positive proof is afforded that the alka- 

 loids are a decomposition product of albumen, and capable of 

 again forming albumen-like asparagine and glutamine. 



It will not be possible in this place to enter more fully into 

 the details of the chemical changes going on within the plant. 

 My time will not allow a discussion of the changes of starch 

 into sugar, and conversely, nor a review of the many steps in 

 the transformation of protoplasm into the simpler products of 

 cellulose, chlorophyll, and other substances; and it may be 

 well to say that the ideas of physiologists in regard to these 

 changes are unstable, since the acquisition of new facts seems 

 to unsettle former opinions. But, to illustrate the revolution 

 within the last few years from former views held in plant 



1 "Les Alcaloides d'Origine Animale," par Dr. L. Huhouneng, Paris. 

 Chem. News, December 10, 1886. 



2 " Landw. Versuch. Stat.," 1886, 370, 380; Jour. Chem. Soc., January, 

 1887, p. 73. 



