1192 Stoward.—Amyloclastic Secretory Capacities of the 
mechanism of the aleurone layer is at once set in motion. Its activity 
during these apparently and outwardly passive phases of activity are, however, 
distinctly intracellular, i. e. little or no enzyme is excreted into the subjacent 
tissue, and consequently a heaping up of enzyme and its possible precursors 
takes place within its cells as shown by predigestion of papain at this stage. 
The experimental results, in short, bear out the work of Ford and 
Guthrie, and show that predigestion with papain under the modified con¬ 
ditions here employed results in an enhancement of the amyloclastic capacity 
of the material under investigation. 
The absolute amylase content or amyloclastic activity of a given plant 
or seed tissue or organ cannot of course be determined, yet it must be con¬ 
ceded that its value must be finite. The method of papain-digestion 
described as applied exchisively x to the investigation of the amyloclastic 
capacity of ungerminated barley furnishes greatly enhanced values as com¬ 
pared with those afforded by other methods so far examined, and apparently 
these values are of the nature of limiting values. 
As such, they may be legitimately utilized as a tentative basis for the 
approximate calculation of the amount of amylase initially present as pre¬ 
existent or ‘ free ’ and ‘ latent ’ amylase respectively, and the amounts of 
amylase which are contributed by the ‘ secretory 5 epithelium and aleurone 
layer at certain stages of germination. 
Investigation of material from germinated seeds by direct , attto-, 
and papain-digestion methods. 
One of the principal features so far presented is the very considerable 
divergence in the value of the amylase content of the structural parts of the 
endosperm of the ungerminated seed as separately determined by these 
methods of determination. 
Does this differential feature still hold when similar structural parts 
from seeds after varying periods of germination are similarly examined? 
The question can be efficiently considered only by an appeal to direct 
experiment. 
Throughout, the experimental work described in this subsection refers 
to the examination of material prepared from seeds which, after the 
customary preliminary sterilization, were germinated in moist sand in 
Coldewe germinators at the temperature of the laboratory (15 0 C.-18 0 C). 
The seeds after the removal from the germinators were at once 
dissected into embryos, aleurone layers, and inner endosperms, and after¬ 
wards desiccated at 30° C. for ten to twenty hours. The separate examinations 
of the amyloclastic capacities of the material by the three methods, the 
1 Papain-digestion does not, as we shall see, influence the amyloclastic capacity of the growing 
embryo of barley nor that of Tropacolum or its structural parts. 
