1915] 
DAVIS—ENZYME ACTION IN MARINE ALGAE Hay 
berg’s name, ‘‘laminarin.’’ He showed also that Torup’s 
‘“‘kreftin’’ was without doubt a modification of ‘‘laminarin.’’ 
Kylin ascribes to ‘‘laminarin’’ the same physiological func- 
tion that starch performs in the higher plants, i. e., that of a 
reserve product. In a more recent paper (715) he shows that 
there is an accumulation of the ‘‘laminarin’’ in the tissues of 
the algae during the summer months, while during the winter 
and spring this reserve is drawn upon by the young fronds 
until by the end of March very little of it is demonstrable. 
Kylin was also able to clear up much of the confusion that 
has attended observation of the light-refracting granules 
present in the cells of many members of the group. They 
had been variously considered as of fatty nature, protein- 
aceous, tannin-like, and glucosidal. Reinke (’76) demon- 
strated fat-like bodies in the cells of Fucus that he looked 
upon as the first visible products of assimilation, a point of 
view later supported by Hansen (’93). Schmitz (’83) claimed 
two distinct bodies present, one of which, although it did not 
react with iodine, he called ‘‘phaeophyceenstarke,’’ the other 
giving the ordinary reactions for fats. Hansteen (’92) had 
observed bodies in the same plant which he maintained were 
of carbohydrate composition and to which he applied the 
term, ‘‘fucosankorner.’’ Crato (’92, ’93), the same year, in- 
vestigating the fat globules observed by Schmitz, suggested 
that they were either phloroglucin or a derivative of it, since 
they colored red with vanillin-hydrochloric acid. This con- 
ception was held by Bruns (’94) as well. In a later paper, 
Hansteen (’00) observed that the ‘‘fucosankorner’’ were 
formed in the presence of light, and this to his mind indicated 
that they function as the first assimilable products. Hunger’s 
(702) work two years later pointed to Hansteen’s ‘‘fucosan- 
korner’’ as being glucosidal in nature, the carbohydrate at- 
tached being bound up with phloroglucin, or at times, with 
tannic acid. Some of the larger ‘‘korner”’ gave fat reactions, 
some protein. Kylin found three definite bodies in the cell, 
the nature of which had been confused by earlier workers— 
fat globules, proteinaceous particles, and tannin-like bodies— 
these latter probably representing the ‘‘fucosankorner’’ of 
