lot 
Green. — On Vegetable Ferments. 
fibro-vascular bundles of the axis and of the cotyledons. In 
the axis he thought it extended also, though only to a small 
extent, to the procambial tissues ; in the fibro-vascular bundles 
of the cotyledons it extended to the endodermis, but the latter 
contained very little. 
Emulsin decomposes not only amygdalin, but many other 
glucosides, including salicin and coniferin. 
Myrosinis the characteristic enzyme of the Cruciferae, though 
probably it is not confined to the plants of this natural order. 
Cruciferous plants abound in very complex glucosides, which on 
decomposition break up into sugar and various strongly-smell- 
ing compounds usually containing sulphur. One of the most 
commonly occurring ones is sinigrine or myronate of potas- 
sium, whose decomposition can be represented by the following 
equation : — 
c 10 h 18 nks 2 o 10 = c 3 h 5 cns + C 6 H, 2 o 6 + khso 4 
Sinigrine Sulphocyanale Glucose Potassic hydrogen 
of Allyl sulphate. 
When the seed of the black mustard ( Sinapis or Brassica 
nigra) is bruised and treated with water the odour of the 
sulphocyanate of allyl is easily recognisable. Both the myrosin 
and the glucoside are contained in the seed, and the reaction 
is the result of their being brought together by the solvent. 
The localisation of myrosin has been the object of a very 
elaborate research by Guignard \ who has investigated a very 
large number of the genera and species of the Cruciferae. In 
1886 Heinricher 2 showed that in many of the plants of this 
natural order special cells, very variously distributed, could be 
recognised by the peculiar nature of their contents. As these 
gave very strongly-marked proteid reactions, he considered 
them to be reservoirs of albuminoid material. By similar 
tests to those he employed in the case of the cherry-laurel 
and almond, Guignard identifies these as the cells that contain 
the enzyme. They are recognisable by their finely granular 
contents and by their being without starch, chlorophyll, fatty 
1 Journal de Botanique, Nov. 1890, p. 385, et seq. 
2 Mittheil. aus dem Bot. Inst, zu Graz, 1886. 
