A GENETICO-PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY ON THE FORMATION ETC. 
17 
Dumber of plants which yielded a deep red colour on heating with hydro¬ 
chloric acid and with oxidase a brown to reddish colour. The red colourine 1 
O 
matter obtained by heating with the acid is changed to blue by an alkali 
like anthocyanin. The cliromogenic substance is soluble in alcohol and in 
ether, and with ammonia yields a deep yellow colour as observed with flavone 
but by reduction yields no colour. It is very sensitive to the action of oxidases 
forming a brown substance of which the colour is intensified by alkali and 
changed to yellow or yellowish brown by acid. The plant extract which con¬ 
tains both this substance and certain kinds of flavones shows a characteristic 
red colour by reduction as well as when heated with hydrochloric acid. Shi- 
bata considered that the substance might be regarded as a colourless antho¬ 
cyanin. Moreaux (1914) 1 considered it proper to rank along with red, violet 
and blue pigments designed as anthocyanins, the colourless compounds which 
are inseparable from them and which are always found in the cells as earlier 
or later products, being closely related to them as regards chemical composi¬ 
tion and as having in common with them a mitochondrial origin. 
We do not know as yet the chemical nature of the substance in question 
but the similarity in certain properties exhibited by the extract from a number 
of plants, suggests that a closely allied substance may be present widely in 
the plant kingdom and it may give rise to certain anthocyanins and the 
reddish brown pigments. The bearing of the fact on genetics is hardly to be 
overlooked, for we are now able to locate and to approximate the cliromogen 
in the part of a plant by the test for flavone and the substance under discus¬ 
sion. In the following pages, the former will be named, for the sake of con¬ 
venience, cliromogenic substance F, and the latter cliromogenic substance P. 
A number of species of plants especially the cultivated plants, were ex¬ 
amined for these cliromogenic substance. The method employed was as 
follows. To each gram of the fresh material, ten cc of a weak alcohol were 
added and extracted on the water bath. Usually three to five grams of the 
materials were taken. Five cc of the extracts were reduced with one cc of 
concentrated hydrochloric acid and magnesium powder for the cliromogenic 
substance F, and another five cc were simply boiled with the acid winch was 
1, Moreaux, F., LT origine et les transformations des produits anthocyaniques. Bull. d. L 
oc. Bot. France. 61:390, 1914. 
