37 1 
Biffen. — A Fat-Destroying Fungus . 
tribution of the oil is even more interesting. Sections stained 
in the same way, or, better still, stained with osmic acid by 
allowing the culture-blocks to remain in Rath’s solution for 
twelve hours, show a plentiful supply of oil in the mycelium 
within the endosperm, and in the lower portions of the stroma. 
The upper portion of the stroma, however, rarely shows a 
trace of oil, though drops can be distinguished in the conidia 
standing away from it. The absorption of oil by the 
mycelium and its disappearance in the stroma points to its 
utilization as a food-stuff, and, as oils are indiffusible sub- 
stances, to its conversion into diffusible bodies by ferment- 
action. 
So far little has been done to establish the existence of 
fat-splitting enzymes, though they must be of very general 
occurrence in the vegetable kingdom, judging from the 
number of seeds grown solely for the purpose of extracting 
the oil they contain. Sachs 1 appears to have been the first 
to observe that the oil gradually disappears on the germination 
of oil-containing seeds, just as starch does in the case of 
farinaceous seeds. From this he was able to argue that oil 
was a reserve-substance in many cases. Fleury 2 went a step 
further, and from an examination of germinating seeds of 
Almond, Castor-oil, and Rape was able to show that a fatty 
non-volatile acid was formed at the same time. These results 
were confirmed by Miintz 3 in 1871, who suggested that the 
decomposition was brought about by means of an enzyme 
which split the fat into a free fatty acid and glycerine. He 
was, however, unable to detect the glycerine. This view was 
generally accepted, but it was not until 1889 that the enzyme 
was isolated by Green 4 from germinating seeds of Ricinus. 
He succeeded in obtaining extracts of the seeds with which 
an emulsion of castor-oil was decomposed into a fatty 
acid and glycerine. The glycerine could not be detected 
1 .Sachs, Bot. Zeit., 1859, p. 178. Physiology, Eng. ed. p. 347. 
2 Fleury, Ann. de chimie, Ser. 4, t. 4, p. 38, 1865. 
3 Miintz, ibid., t. 22, 1871. 
1 Green, Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xlviii, p. 370. 
