This el ton-Dyer.—Morphological Notes. 
229 
of the cellulose, but he does not appear to have made any direct experiments 
in support of this view. . . . The epithelial cells increase in number, and 
are gradually pushed forward as the reserve-cellulose of the endosperm is 
absorbed.’ 1 
Green in 1887, and Brown and Morris in 1890, were unsuccessful in 
extracting the enzyme of the Date, which the latter suggested might be used 
up as fast as formed. 2 It was, however, accomplished by Newcombe in 
1899. Brown and Morris, however, extracted a cyto-hydrolytic enzyme 
from the germinating seeds of the Grasses. But this had no action on the 
reserve-cellulose, the seeds of Phoenix , or of plants of other natural orders. 
That at any rate a similar cytase does the work in Lodoicea cannot be 
doubted. Its precise nature and that of the final and intermediate products 
of its action deserve investigation. We shall probably have to wait till 
some one with the necessary equipment can visit the Seychelles, where the 
scale on which the enzymes operate in Lodoicea should afford unique 
opportunities for their study. 
What other constituents besides cellulose the endosperm contains has 
not been ascertained. In barley, according to the classical research of 
Brown and Morris, the amylo-hydrolytic enzyme ‘ is no doubt principally 
due to a secretion by the columnar epithelium of the growing embryo ’. 
4 There is a steady accumulation of starch-liquefying diastase in the 
endosperm, and this in the course of time permeates its whole tissue, the 
ready passage of the enzyme through the contents of the grain having been 
enormously facilitated by the previous destruction of the cell-walls by the 
cyto-hydrolytic enzyme.’ 3 
It is probable that in most cases in the absorption of an endosperm 
the process takes place in two stages : the thickened cell-walls are attacked 
by one enzyme, and the cell-contents are thus exposed to the action of 
others. But an enzyme might possibly get access to the cell-contents 
before the destruction of the cell-wall. In 1883 Gardiner was able to study 
its structure in a nut which I was able to place at his disposal, as it had 
failed to germinate. He found that the thickened cell-walls showed 
numerous deep pits which were closed by a membrane. But he describes 
them as ‘ affording one of the clearest examples of the perforation both of 
the wall and pit membrane ’ 4 by protoplasmic threads. It may be 
reasonably suspected that these would afford channels for the propagation 
of enzyme action. 
1 Researches on the Germination of some of the Gramineae. J. Chem. Soc. 57, pp. 497-8. 
2 l.c., p. 499. 3 1. c., p. 507. 
4 Phil. Trans., R. S., 1883, p. 848. 
PS. While this was passing through the press, Prof. Farmer, who 
had seen a proof, wrote to me : ‘ It may interest you to know that in 1890, 
