t16 
W. T. Swingle at the Dells of the Wisconsin River, where 
an endophytic alga was discovered in the leaves of the 
common Indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum). This para- 
site causes white spots, which are often one-half inch or 
more in diameter and in which the bright green threads 
of the alga are distinctly visible with a low power objective 
or even with a good hand lens. From Wille’s description 
and illustrations of Phyllosiphon arisari (in Engler and 
Prantl Nat. Pflanzenf.) this would seem to be that species. 
Heretofore it has been known only from the leaves and 
stems of Arisarum vulgare in southern France and some 
parts of Italy, being first described by Kiihn in 1878. 
Another algal parasite, Mycoidea parasitica, was des- 
cribed at the same meeting, having been discovered by 
Mr. Swingle in Florida, where it forms rusty patches on 
the leaves of Xanthoxylum., This was first described by 
Cunningham from the leaves of various tropical land 
plants and is figured by Wille (l.c.) This plant is also 
new to the United States, and its discovery, with that of 
the Phyllosiphon following so close upon its heels, suggests 
the probability that other of our land plants are parasitized 
by algae, especially in damp situations, aud that many 
interesting discoveries will be made now that attention 
has been called to the subject. Mr. Swingle’s suggestion 
that the parasitic phycomycetes, ¢.g., Peronospora, may 
have been derived from some such land forms rather than 
from the water-loving algae, appears to be worth con- 
sidering. The effect of the Phyllosiphon on the Arisaema 
leaf suggests a fungus, and it would certainly be con- 
sidered one but for its chlorophyll. 
VEGETABLE FERMENTS. 
Mr. J. R. GREEN in Annals of Botany (March, 1893), 
has a long paper on vegetable ferments, embodying a 
digest of the present state of our knowledge. ‘‘ Pro- 
visionally,”’ says the author, ‘‘ these bodies may be classi- 
fied according to the materials on which they work. We 
may thus make four well-marked groups, excluding those 
which are obtainable from micro-organisms, as well as 
one or two whose action has not been thoroughly investi- 
gated. These groups will be: (1) Those which attack 
carbohydrates. These will include the different varieties 
of diastase, the ferment transforming inulin, the invertase 
which breaks up cane-sugar, the cytohydrolysts attacking 
cellulose, and the ferment which forms vegetable jelly 
from pectic substances. (2) Those which decompose 
glucosides, with formation of sugar and various aromatic 
bodies. Of these the best known are emulsin or synap- 
tase, myrosin, erythrozym, andrhamnase. (3) The proteo- 
hydrolytic group, including vegetable pepsin, trypsin, and 
rennet, resembling very closely the animal enzymes 
bearing the same names. (4) The enzyme that decom- 
poses oils or fats.” The common or translocation 
diastase has a wide distribution in plant cells, and Ba- 
renetzky suggests that it is universally present so long as 
the cells are living. It slowly dissolves starch, converting 
it into sugar. A more active form known as diastase of 
secretion destroys the starch grain by corrosion. It 
occurs in various grains but only at the commencement 
of germination, being apparently secreted by the epithelial 
cells of the scutellum, but according to Haberlandt by 
the aleurone layer in the barley grain. /mz/ase occurs in 
the artichoke, dahlia and various other Composite. It 
first appears in the germinating tubers, converting the 
inulin into sugar. //vertase occurs in a variety of veget- 
able substances,—yeast, bacteria, fungi, malt, buds and 
leaves, pollen, grains, etc. It has the power of inverting 
or hydrolysing cane sugar into dextrose and laevulose. 
It occurs also in animals. <A cytohydrolyticferment prob- 
bably occurs in the endosperm cells of palm seeds, but no 
one has yet been able to isolate it. The author cites 
De Bary’s well-known experiments on the extrusion of a 
SEMaNGs 
Vol. XXIII. No. 578 
cellulose dissolving substance from the hyphe of certain 
Pezizas, and Marshall Ward’s on the lily Botrytis, and 
thinks that such bodies are not exceptional in the vege- 
table kingdom. Brown and Morris have discovered a 
similar enzyme in germinating barley grains. Pectase 
occurs in a variety of plants, carrots, beets, fruits, etc., 
and has the power of converting cellulose into gum. 
Emulsin occurs in certain Prunoidee in the vicinity of 
the fibro-vascular bundles. It decomposes amygdalin 
into sugar, benzoic aldehyde, and prussic acid, and also 
decomposes many other glucosides. JZjyrosim is the 
characteristic enzyme of the Cruciferze, but is probably 
not confined to this order. It breaks up the very com- 
plex glucosides abounding in Cruciferous plants into sugar 
and certain strong-smelling compounds generally contain- 
ing sulphur. This enzyme occurs in special cells variously 
distributed. The strong smell of black mustard seed 
when bruised and covered with water is due to the 
liberation of sulphocyanate of allyl from contact of this 
enzyme with the glucoside, sinigrine, contained in other 
cells of the seed. RAamnase occurs in the seeds of the 
Persian berry, Rhamnus infectorius. It decomposes a 
glucoside, xanthorhamnin, into glucose and a bright 
yellow dye, rhamnetin, the glucoside occurring abundantly 
in the pulp of the fruit and in the pericarp. Attention 
was first drawn to this enzyme by the discovery that 
decoctions of the pericarp alone would not produce the 
dye but that it developed at once when mixed with a little 
of the crushed seed. Subsequently Marshall Ward found 
out that the enzyme was located in a very small part of 
the seed, viz., the raphe, and that no other part of it 
would decompose the glucoside and produce the dye. 
Lrythrozym occurs in the madder root, and there are yet 
other glucoside-enzymes, but less well known. /Pepszn, 
or ferments very closely resembling it, and provisionally to 
be classed with it, occur in Drosera, Dionza, Pinguicula, 
and other insectivorous plants. Probably the ferments 
found in Nepenthes, Sarracenia, and Aethalium sapticum 
also belong here. They are capable of dissolving proteids, 
connective tissue, cartilage and gelatine, and are most 
active in a slightly acid medium, strikingly resembling 
in these particulars the pepsin of the stomach. Z7yfszn, 
capable not only of converting proteids into peptone but 
also of breaking up the latter into amide bodies, occurs 
in the pawpaw (Carica papaya), the fig, and a melon 
(Cucumis utillisimus), the natives of India having for a 
long time made use of this fact by cooking certain fruits 
with tough meat to make it tender. A similar enzyme 
exists in the juice of the pineapple, in the seeds of vetch, 
hemp, flax, barley, castor beans and lupins, at the time 
of germination. Daccomo and Tommasi have also 
described a proteo-hydrolytic ferment from Annagallis 
arvensis, the fresh plant disintegrating fresh meat or 
fibrin in thirty-six hours when kept in contact with it at 
60° C. Rennet occurs along with trypsin in commercial 
papain, in the juice of the pineapple, and in the seed of 
Ricinus. It has also been extracted in recent years from 
a variety of seeds, some before and others during germi- 
nation. Lea has given quite a full account of its prepara- 
tion from the seeds of Withania coagulans, a Solanaceous 
shrub of Afghanistan and northern India, and the author 
has found it in seeds of Datura Stramonium, Pisum sativum, 
Lupinus hirsutus, etc. It also occurs in the pericarp, 
pulp, and expressed juice of the ripe fruit of the Naras 
(Acanthosicyos horrida), a Cucurbitaceous plant of South 
Africa. The power of curdling milk also exists in the 
flowers of Galium verum, a plant still used in west 
England by cheesemakers; in the leaves of Pinguicula 
vulgaris, first noted by Linnaeus as in use by Lapland 
tribes for this purpose, and said by Pfeffer to be still used 
in the Italian Alps; in the glands of Drosera, noted by 
