Dec. i3,1915 
Translocation of Constituents of Seeds and Tubers 455 
EXPERIMENTS WITH CORN 
Similar experiments have been tried with com, except that the seed¬ 
lings were grown in aluminum cups instead of in paraffined tubes. One 
thousand grains of com were germinated, transferred to aluminum cups, 
and allowed to grow for 23 days, when they began to etiolate. During 
this time these seedlings attained a height of 9 inches. At this point 
they were removed from the cups and dissected as follows: Leaves (2), 
exhausted cotyledons (3), stems (4), and roots (5). (See Table III.) 
These were controlled by the same number of whole corn grains (1) as 
given also in Table III. These several lots of material were analyzed in 
the same manner as the bean seedlings. In this experiment we have 
also followed the translocation of iron and aluminum. Unfortunately, 
the results obtained with these two last-named elements show contamina¬ 
tion from the aluminum cups used in the experiment. The results of the 
analyses of the ash of com grain and of the several parts of the seedlings 
thereof are given in Table III. 
It will be seen from the results of these analyses that the sum of the 
total ash of the several parts of the com seedling exceeds the total ash 
of the com grain by 0.9487 gm. This is doubtless to be explained by 
the fact that iron and aluminum were taken up in considerable amounts 
from the cups and also by contamination with small amounts of dust 
from the outside air. It will be seen that the sum of the amounts of 
phosphoric acid, potash, and magnesia in the several parts of the com 
seedling agrees with that of the corresponding amounts of these sub¬ 
stances found in the com grain, within the limits of experimental error. 
A point of interest in this connection is that magnesia is greatly in 
excess of lime in the grain of com and in the several parts of the seedling 
obtained therefrom. The amounts of lime, silicon, iron, or aluminum 
found in the several parts of the seedling are in excess of the amounts of 
these substances found in the grain. As already pointed out, this dis¬ 
crepancy is doubtless due to outside contamination. Under the condi¬ 
tions prevailing in this experiment approximately two-thirds of the total 
mineral matter of the com grain has been translocated to the stems, 
roots, and leaves of the seedling during the process of growth. It is 
evident further that approximately the same amounts of this mineral 
matter go to stem and roots, respectively, whereas a somewhat larger 
amount of the mineral matter migrates to the leaves of the seedlings. 
The fact that a relatively large amount of the mineral matter, amounting 
in this case to something over one-third of the whole, remains in the 
exhausted cotyledon is of interest and doubtless has the same signifi¬ 
cance for the growth of the seedling as is believed to obtain in the case 
of the bean, already discussed. The percentage distribution of the min¬ 
eral constituents of corn during the growth of the seedling is shown in 
Table IV. 
