1877.] Botany. 361 
This action of diastase probably takes place when any reservoir of 
starch is used by a plant for purposes of growth. “We are not to 
occupy ourselves here with the nature and origin of diastase, still less with 
its action. .... Suffice it to state for the present that chemists establish 
no distinction between the animal and vegetable diastase, of which the 
power is the same and the rôle identical.” 
“Ferment inversif.” Saccharose, like starch, is a ternary compound 
accumulating in certain tissues in view for its need in nutrition, as in 
the stem of the sugar-cane, or root of the sugar beet. Though soluble 
it is not assimilated as such by animals, but is split up by this transpos- 
ing ferment into glucose and levulose or transposed sugar. 
Ci HOn -+ H,O = CH 20O; + CH0. 
Saccharose + water = glucose + levulose. 
These changes are seen on a grand scale in the beet root during the 
flowering of that plant. , 
Emulsive and saponaceous ferment. The fat bodies are digested in 
the intestines of animals by means of pancreatic ‘juice by first making 
them into a fine mechanical mixture followed by a somewhat compli- 
cated chemical change called saponification, or hydration and division 
into glycerine and fatty acids. For example : — 
C;H;(C,;H3,0.0) + 3H,O = C;H,0; + 3(C,;H,0.HO) 
Trioleine + water = glycerine + oleic acid. 
This same ferment exists in vegetables. Oleaginous seeds when ground 
up in water form an emulsion, and if allowed to stand for a time glycer- 
ine and fatty acid are produced. There is no doubt that the oils and 
fats in vegetables constitute a nutritive provision, as the grains of Cruci- 
fers, Linum, and bulbs of the Onion will show. 
Albuminous ferment ; pepsine. We come now to the digestion of ni- 
trogenous substances under the influence of the pepsine of the gastric 
juice. Mr. Darwin, as his work on Insectivorous Plants will show, 
believes there is no doubt but that plants have this same power, and 
quotes M. Frankland’s experiments, in which he found pepsine in the 
glands of the Drosera. More recently MM. Max Rees and H. Will 
(Bot. Zeit. 29 Oct., 1875), have extracted this ferment by the usual 
process, and with it they have caused artificial digestion of fibrine. It 
's in the grains that there is most frequently found a considerable quan- 
tity of albuminoids stored up as gluten, legumin, and aleurone to serve 
the requirements of the germinating plantlet. These substances are 
y in an insoluble state, but are dissolved as required. The fer- 
ment doing this valuable work of solution is not thoroughly understood. 
A. Gorup-Besanez and H. Will (Bericht der Deutsch. Chem. Gesells., 
Berlin, 1874, p. 1478) state that the seeds of Vicia sativa contain with 
‘Starch a notable proportion of legumin, and when these seeds germi- 
hate the legumin disappears, and leucine and asparagine are produced ; 
4nd they presume these bodies result from a division produced by a 
