1910] CURRENT LITERATURE 71 
Enzymes of germination.—DELEANO?° has made a somewhat disconnected 
study of the transformation of oil and the concomitant occurrence of various 
enzymes in the castor bean during the process of germination. The tables relat- 
ing to the oil content of the seeds (freed from coats) on successive days of germiha- 
tion show that the oil content is practically constant during the first eight days 
of germination, after that decreasing so rapidly that by the fifteenth day it has 
nearly all disappeared. Samples equivalent to those used for analysis were 
taken each day, ground up, and subjected to autolysis in s50-100ce of water, 
with a little toluene, for ten hours. e oil was saponified with increasing 
rapidity as germination advanced. Thus on the first day no autolysis took place; 
on the fourth day 5 per cent.; and on the sixth day 98 per cent. of the oil was 
hydrolyzed in ten hours. The accumulation of fatty acids did not take place. 
From these experiments the author concludes, in agreement as he supposes with 
LEcLERc Du SaBLon, that the oil is not saponified in the cells, but that saponifica- 
tion takes place only when the correlation of the cells is destroyed. This con- 
clusion is scarcely warranted, since the products of hydrolysis of the oil are probably 
removed as soon as formed and still further changed. This is the almost universal 
course of enzymic activity in living plants, while it is also universally true that 
only when the correlation of the cellular processes is interrupted can the activity 
of the enzymes be clearly demonstrated by the accumulation of the products of 
enzymic activity. 
The relative abundance of some of th y t tages ol g 
tion was also determined. Catalase increases at first and then decreases with 
the disappearance of the oil. The oxidases increase for a time and then remain 
fairly constant. The author also believes that he has shown the presence of a 
reducing enzyme. The work on these enzymes is not of sufficient extent to allow 
any general conclusions regarding their functions. —H. HassELBRING. 
. 
werminga 
Ambrosia fungi.NeEGER has been giving attention to the fungi associated 
with certain insects, which utilize them for food. The monilia-like cells that the 
insects eat he proposes to call ambrosia, a generic term like nectar, bee-bread, etc., 
and the fungi are to be designated as ambrosia fungi. In his first paper?* he 
Considers the ambrosia galls (a happy substitute for zoomycocecidia) produced 
by gall-mites of the genus Asphondylia, in which the insect undergoes its develop- 
ment from egg to imago. The gall cavity is lined with a hymenium-ike 
layer of fungus filaments producing spherical monilia-like cells, the ambrosia. 
Later pycnidia are formed on the external surface of the gall after the insect has 
ners 
*° DELEANO, N. J., Recherches chimiques sur la germination. Centralbl. Bakt. 
Parasit. Infectionskrank. 24211 30-146. 1909. 
** NEGER, F. W., Ambrosiapilze. Ber Deutsch. Bot. Gesells. 26a:735-754. pl. 12. 
Jigs. 2. 1908. 
