272 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 
beet, sugar-cane, sorghum, the fruit groups of the Rosaceae, 
and the sugar maple. 
The sugar of the palms, among the highest of plants with 
simplicity of floral elements, is very like that of the cane. Since 
the grasses are the lower of monocotyledons with multiplicity 
of parts, it is notable that at the meeting-ground between these 
groups, or at the transition-stage into multiplicity, sugar should 
occur. The sugar of the palm is very little above the sugar line; 
it may be considered, in an evolutionary sense, as passing to the 
cane sugar of these other groups, and as forming the apex of a 
low triangle, the base being the sugar line already described. 
The large percentage of grape-sugar in the fig, Ficus carica , 
occurs in a class very nearly on a line with these cane-sugar 
plants. 
Glucosides are more especially the compounds of the middle 
plane of plant development, and are found in the higher mono¬ 
cotyledons of this stage, in the lower and some of the higher 
dicotyledons, and less frequently in the highest of all plants, or 
under cephalization. The first appearance of a glucoside occurs 
in the apetalous groups of flowering plants, as quercitrin in 
Cary a tomentosa , Juglandaceae, or in other hickory varieties; 
then in the next following orders, as salicin and populin, of 
the willow and poplar; antiarin, of the Ants jar, or Upas-tree 
(.Antiaris toxicaria ); acorin, of the Arum , and coniferin, of the 
Coniferae. Among the Lirioideae groups many glucosides occur, 
especially saponin, and I have found this compound in species 
of the yucca, agave, and among dicotyledons in leguminous 
plants; besides, it is found in Rosaceae and other parallel 
groups. 
Saponin is also found in Smilax , a genus partaking somewhat 
of the nature of endogens and exogens, and serves to unite all 
the saponin groups; 1 and although this compound is widely 
distributed in plants, it is a significant fact that all the groups 
containing it belong to this middle evolutionary division. 
Rosoll 2 has found saponin in the cell-sap of living roots of 
Saponaria and Gysophila , and I have elsewhere called attention 
1 “Chemical Basis of Plant Forms.” See p. 232. 
2 Monats. Chem., v, 94; Jahresb. d. Chem., 1884. 
