821 
Embryo and Aleurone Layer of Hordeum. 
The embryos exhibited no signs of growth. These results, on the one 
hand, show that the treatment described is fatal alike to the vitality and 
secretory functions of the embryo, and inferentially, and by comparison 
with results of experiments (Tables I, II, &c.), the same deduction may 
be drawn from the results furnished by the aleurone layer experiments. 
The anaesthetic reagents employed at first suspend and then completely 
annihilate the secretory mechanism of both the embryo and aleurone layer. 
One probable reason for the comparatively small reduction of the 
secretory capacity of the aleurone layer is the difficulty offered to 
rapid penetration of the anaesthetic reagents through or across the highly 
cuticularized walls of the cells of this tissue. 1 
That this is probable is shown by the fact that when immersion of 
aleurone layer fragments in aqueous solutions of these reagents was 
restricted to twenty-four hours the reduction in the amount of amylase 
found in the culture medium was still less than in the foregoing experiments. 2 
It is equally probable that these agents in small quantity may stimu¬ 
late secretion during the earlier stages of anaesthesia. 
The results are also of interest because they serve to explain certain 
anomalies in the work of Brown and Morris, 3 dealing with the alleged non- 
glandular nature of the aleurone layer. 
The statement is made that, in contrast to the embryo, fragments 
of the aleurone layer, after treatment with chloroform vapour, retain their 
diastatic powers quite unimpaired. Such fragments placed upon starch 
grains attacked these quite as quickly and completely as non-chloroformed 
fragments ; that is to say, treatment which was found to be fatal to the 
embryo and completely arrested its amyloclastic functions, failed to do so in 
the case of fragments of the aleurone layer. Both tissues are regarded by 
the authors as possessing vitality, yet in one case (embryos) arrest of vitality 
means arrest of the secretory mechanism, in the other (aleurone layers) 
arrest of vitality signifies apparent non-arrest of the secretory function. 
The anomaly is evident, and the qualitative method of investigation used by 
the authors is largely responsible for the interpretation placed upon the 
phenomenon observed, as the foregoing experiments and those which follow 
show that treatment with chloroform is fatal to the life of both the embryo 
and aleurone layer. The embryo excised from the steeped seed contains 
little, if any, preformed amylase, and consequently when it or sections 
of the scutellum are placed on moistened starch grains no action occurs. 
Fragments of aleurone layer taken from the steeped or germinating seed 
invariably contain a considerable quantity of preformed enzyme, and 
1 Stoward, Ann. Bot., xxii, 1908, pp. 87, 442. 
2 The probable meaning of this is that with shorter steeping less amylase diffuses from the frag¬ 
ments of killed tissue into the steeping medium, and hence more enzyme is found subsequently in the 
culture medium. 
3 Journ. Chem. Soc., lvii, 1890, p. 525. 
