ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
59 
zoospores escape. They are but little affected by external agencies. 
The author has found these structures not only in the Plueosporcae, 
but in all other brown or green algae and flowering plants examined. 
Active Albumen in Plants.* — Herr 0. Loew sums up the arguments 
in favour of the existence of an active albumen in the living cell. The 
living protoplasm is, he states, composed of proteids entirely different 
from the ordinary soluble proteids, as well as from the proteids of dead 
protoplasm. This is shown by the property of respiration possessed by 
the living cell. On treating living plant-cells with dilute solutions of 
ammonia or organic bases or their salts, remarkable changes are 
observed, consisting either in the formation of numerous minute 
granules, as is the case on the application of most of the bases, or in the 
production of small globules flowing together to make relatively large 
drops of a substance of high refractive power, as happens on the 
application of weak bases like caffein or antipyrin ; these latter are the 
proteosomes. They give the principal reactions of albuminous bodies, 
but contain in most cases an admixture of small quantities of lecithin 
and tannin. On the other hand, bases do not act upon the albumen of 
dead cells, nor upon ordinary dissolved albumen. The proteosomes have 
the property of reducing dilute silver solutions in the absence of light, 
but lose this property on the action of acids. Soon after the death of the 
protoplasm, the proteosomes lose their characteristic properties, becoming 
hollow and turbid. 
C2) Other Cell-contents (including: Secretions). 
Chemistry of Chlorophyll.! — Dr. E. Schunck gives a resume of 
researches into the nature and constitution of chlorophyll since 1889. 
Gautier’s “ crystallized chlorophyll ” he regards as a product of decom- 
position formed during the process. Tschirch’s “ phyllocyanic acid ” is 
merely impure phyllocyanin. The “ phylloxanthin ” of Fremy is a 
mixture of several colouring matters ; true phylloxanthin resembles 
phyllocyanin so closely in its properties that they are probably isomeric 
substances. Pringsheim’s “ hypochlorin ” appears to be identical with 
phylloxanthin. 
Vegetable Lecithin.^ — Herr A. Likiernik finds, in the seeds of 
vetches and lupins, a substance identical in its properties, and in its 
products of decomposition, with the lecithin found in animal organisms. 
It was accompanied by lupeol and phaseol, bodies analogous to the 
cholesterins. Lupeol consists partly of a substance which, with the 
same amount of carbon, contains two atoms less of hydrogen than 
cholesterin ; in the lupin it appears to replace the cholesterin of other 
Leguminosze. 
Calcium oxalate in the Bark of Trees.§— According to Herr G. 
Kraus, the calcium oxalate which is contained in large quantities in the 
bark of various trees is a reserve deposit, and not an excretion ; it is 
redissolved in the spring and summer, passing into the cell-sap. 
* Nature, xlvi. (1892) pp. 491-2. 
f Ann. Bot., vi. (1892) pp. 231-44. Cf. this Journal, 1892, p. 381. 
t ‘Ueb. d. pflanzliche Lecithin u.s.w.,’ Zurich, 1891. See Bot. Centralbl. lii 
(1892) p. 19 ; and Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., xxiv. (1891) pp. 71-4. 
§ Ann. Agron., xviii. pp. 271-2. See Journ. Chem. Soc., 1892, Abstr., p. 1370 
