Cellulose-Enzymes. 
BY 
FREDERICK C. NEWCOMBE, Ph.D. 
University of Michigan. 
I. Historical. 
A PART from a few Bacteria, there have been, to my 
knowledge, but four plants reported from which a 
cellulose-dissolving enzyme has been extracted. In 1886 
de Bary 1 published an account of Peziza Sclerotiorum , whose 
mycelium was able to penetrate cell-membranes and to 
gelatinize them. The expressed juice of this Fungus, 
especially that of its sclerotia, dissolved the middle lamella 
and gelatinized the inner lamella of cell-walls of the roots 
of the Carrot and Turnip. The expressed juice of cultures of 
the P'ungus on the Carrot and Turnip, when treated with an 
excess of alcohol, sent down a flocculent precipitate, which, 
when dried and redissolved in water and acidulated, had the 
same effect on cellulose membranes as did the untreated 
expressed juice. In 1888 Marshall Ward 2 , by methods 
similar to those of de Bary, demonstrated a like ferment 
1 Ueber einige Sclerotinien und Sclerotienkrankheiten : Bot. Zeit, xliv. 377. 
2 On a Lily-disease : Ann. of Bot. ii. 319. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XIII. No. XLIX. March, 1899.] 
E 
