360- General Notes. [June, 
GENERAL NOTES. 
BOTANY.! 
VEGETABLE Digestion.” The following note is an abstract of Pro- 
fessor Morren’s communication : — 
There is no doubt that certain plants have the power to allure, retain, 
kill, dissolve, and absorb insects and even larger animals. There is 
nothing astonishing in this, for to my mind the facts observed among the 
carnivorous n are in perfect harmony with the general theory of the 
nutrition of plan 
Digestion is i ‘the exclusive characteristic of carnivorous plants, but 
is common to all living beings, animal as well as vegetable. In animals, 
digestion in its essence is considered by chemists to be an indirect fer- 
mentation, consisting of an hydration, followed by a splitting up into 
new and more simple forms of the digestible materials. ‘These marvel- 
ous and necessary transformations are accomplished by the action of 
mysterious and powerful substances called ferments. The ferments are 
derived, according to all appearances, from the albuminous matters, and 
seem to be a part of the protoplasm itself. They are more or less 
distributed throughout all the animal organism, but particularly abundant 
in the juices which are secreted especially in view of digestion, such as 
the saliva, gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal juices. They may be ex- 
tracted in a separate form and their activity still be preserved. 
The food, as it is taken in by the animal, is not usually in a state fitted 
to pass into the system, and these ferments act upon it and produce the 
necessary changes, the albuminoids pass into “ peptones,” starch into 
sugar, fats into an emulsion, each class of foods being transformed by 
its own appropriate ferment. 
Plants also take in their food in a crude state, and digestion is as 
essential with them as with animals. The ferments form an integral part 
of the vegetable organism, and are even more numerous in the vegetable 
than the animal kingdom 
Diastase or glycosic Simei. This is the digestive ferment of amyla- 
ceous substances. By its influence starch is hydrated and divided into 
the readily soluble products, dextrine and glucose — 
2(CgH,,0;) + H,O = C,H,,0; + all 
Starch -+ water = dextrine + gluco 
In animals these changes are brought about by on ir and pancere- 
atic juice. A fine illustration of this action among vegetables is seen in 
the germination of masses of barley, or malting as it is commonly termed. 
1 Conducted by Pror. G. L. Goopa 
2 La Digestion Vegetale, note sur le rôle des ferments dans la nutrition des plantes, 
communiquée a Académie Royal de Belgique dans sa séance du 21 Octobre, 1876. 
Par M. spies Morren, Professor a l'Université de Liége. 
