Green . — On Vegetable Ferments. 95 
the tissues became softened, the mycelium destroying the 
cell-walls of the pith and cortex. The hyphae could be seen 
growing between the cells and breaking down the middle 
lamella. When the affected pulp of the carrot was pressed 
so as to obtain the juice from it, the latter was found to 
possess the property of dissolving cellulose. Pieces of vege- 
table tissue placed in such expressed juice were almost dis- 
integrated in a few hours, the cell-walls swelling and the 
middle lamella being dissolved. The fluid expressed from 
the sclerotia of the fungus was still more effective. De 
Bary concluded the power of action was vested in an enzyme, 
as the juice lost its property on being boiled. 
In 1889 Marshall Ward, while pursuing some investigations 
into the life-history of a Botrytis which was causing a parti- 
cular disease in the Lily, seems to have met with the same 
ferment k The Botrytis was found to be capable of pene- 
trating the cell-walls of Lilium candidum and of growing 
freely inside the tissues. It is therefore parasitic as well as 
saprophytic in its habit. Certain of the hyphae, on coming 
into contact with any object such as a cell- wall, or a cover- 
glass, swell at the tip and apparently pour out a somewhat 
glairy fluid ; the hyphae branching at the same time below 
the point of contact. If such a hypha does not come into 
contact with anything, it gradually pours out a nearly 
transparent viscid drop of fluid, the exudation lasting for 
some hours. The drop gradually becomes very granular, 
with brilliant refringent granules, and is found to give proteid 
reactions. From large cultures of the fungus made in 
Pasteur’s solution a mass of such hyphae can be obtained, and 
from such a mass a watery extract containing the dissolved 
granular matter can be prepared. When thin sections of 
parenchyma are placed in this and kept warm, the cellulose 
is found to swell, show lamination, and ultimately undergo 
solution. If the watery extract be poured into a large excess 
of alcohol, a precipitate, partly crystalline and partly amor- 
phous, rapidly forms. This can be separated by filtration, 
1 Annals of Botany, II. 2, 319, 1888. 
