450 Bruscki . — Researches on the Vitality and 
as Brown and Morris have already proved, all the digestion products of the 
endosperm. 
If the embryo does not furnish diastase to the endosperm, one must 
needs think that the latter dissolves its own contents. This brings us 
to a series of researches which I intend to complete and enlarge with 
my own work. 
Sachs (’62) held that the endosperm of Gramineae remained quite 
passive during germination, and was actively exhausted by the embryo. 
Gris (’65) had noted the different behaviour of amylaceous endosperms 
compared with those containing aleurone or oil as reserve material. 
The first experiments were made by Van Tieghem (77), who found 
that isolated endosperms of Ricinus communis , placed under conditions 
comparable to germination, respired and digested themselves till the 
aleurone and oil were consumed, while the starchy endosperm of Canna , 
and the horny endosperm of Date 1 remained passive and unchanged. This 
indicated that endosperms containing aleurone and oil digest themselves, 
and hence are living, while amylaceous endosperms and those containing 
hemicellulose as reserve material cannot digest themselves and so do not 
possess vitality. 
Brown and Morris, after an extended study on the endosperm of 
Barley, agreed with Van Tieghem that the endosperm of Gramineae 
is a ‘ dead magazine ’ of reserve material. Ultimately they found that the 
diastatic capacity of the scutellum cells is destroyed by treatment with 
chloroform vapour. 
They say that the endosperm cells are dead, although they contain 
diastase, since they later become dissolved. Certainly, Brown and Morris 
experimented exclusively with Barley in which, long before the starch 
is liquefied, the walls of the endosperm cells are totally destroyed, so that 
one could hardly designate such cells as living ; nevertheless, in Maize grains 
the scutellum does not emit diastase, 2 — so, in this plant at least, the endo- 
sperm cells must produce it on their own account. Here is already 
a difference between Maize and Barley. 
Haberlandt (’90) maintained that the aleurone layer alone secretes 
the whole of the diastase which dissolves the endosperm reserves, based on 
the fact that starch grains are attacked within twenty-four hours when 
placed on the isolated and washed aleurone layer. He prevented the 
advent of any amylase from the scutellum by interrupting the communica- 
tion between this organ and the aleurone layer by means of a circular 
incision. But these experiments prove only that the aleurone layer also 
contains diastase. In fact, Linz has demonstrated that diastase occurs 
in the aleurone layer of Maize, which increases during germination as it is 
1 For ‘digestion of Dates,’ see Vinson (’07). 
2 The contrary affirmations of Laurent (’00) seem to deserve confirmation. 
