Researches on the Vitality and Self-digestion of the 
Endosperm of some Graminaceae . 1 
BY 
DIANA BRUSCHI, D.Sc. 
Argument and Literature. 
T WO different methods have been followed in order to solve the 
question whether the reserve material contained in the endosperm 
of amyliferous seeds is exclusively digested by enzymes secreted during 
germination, or whether the endosperm cells renew their vital activity and 
themselves dissolve their own food material. The first method consisted in 
seeking whether the embryo really secretes enzymes ; the second in testing 
whether the embryo can develop and live if removed from the endosperm 
and provided with food artificially. 
Van Tieghem (73) and Blociszewski (76) found that several embryos 
isolated from their endosperm developed when placed on starch jelly, but 
they took no account of the bacteria which had no doubt infected their 
cultures and had dissolved the starch by means of their powerful diastase. 
The same objection applies to the researches of Brown and Morris (’90), 
and Grliss (’94), according to whom the isolated embryo of Barley develops 
on, and liquefies, starch jelly. 
Linz (’96) succeeded in making sterile embryos of Maize grown on 
a jelly containing soluble starch, and he found that by means of the 
scutellum they absorbed and secreted sugar, but did not liberate the 
slightest trace of diastase. Griiss confirmed this in a later paper (’97). 
The epithelium of the scutellum, then, is not a diastase-secreting 
gland, although its cells grow enormously in length during the endosperm 
evacuation, and they show all the characters of vigorously secreting cells, 
as the cytological researches of Reed (’04), Sargant and Robertson (’05) 
have demonstrated. This last fact can be explained even if these cells do 
not liberate enzymes, for, as Linz has shown (’96), they produce most 
of the amylase for the nutrition of the embryo, and absorb and elaborate, 
1 From the Physiological Laboratory of the University Botanic Garden, Rome (1905-1906). 
(This paper is an abstract of several preceding papers, quoted at the end.) 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXII. No. LXXXVII. July, 1908.] 
