New -YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 199 
get.evidence of cytolytic action from the extracts of any pollen 
he tested. 
No later trials have come to our attention and we are there- 
fore unable to go further than to make inferences as to the 
presence of a cytolytic enzym in pollen. Green concludes that 
it is there in spite of his failure to secure it and that it is 
similar to the lamella-dissolving enzym of Ward’s lily Botry- 
tis. The penetration of the walls observed by Miyoshi may 
easily have resulted from mechanical pressure without the 
complete absorption of the cellulose layers of the walls. 
CYTOLYTIC ACTION IN SEEDS AND OTHER STORAGE TISSUES 
OF THE HIGHER PLANTS. 
The endosperm of seeds has the cell membranes character- 
istically of the easily-hydrolyzed or hemicellulose type, and 
the same is true of other plant storage tissues such as fleshly 
roots and tubers. The solution of these in the normal processes 
of germination or growth-resumption has long interested plant 
physiologists. ) 
Sachs (1862) observed the solution of the endosperm of the 
date palm, Phoenia. This was attributed to an enzym, but 
attempts at isolation of a soluble ferment from the seeds of 
another palm, Livistonia, by Green (1893:94) failed and it 
remained for Newcombe (1899: 67) to secure the cytolytic 
enzym from germinating seeds of Phoenix dactylifera. 
The first enzvm of this class isolated from seeds was, how- 
ever, obtained by Brown and Morris (1890) from barley malt. 
They found that the alcoholic precipitate of malt extract con- 
tained a cytolytic enzym in addition to diastase. This func- 
tions, during normal germination, leading to the solution of 
the endosperm walls preceding the solition of the starch gran- 
ules by the diastase. The details are of interest: First, a 
slight swelling of the inner lamellar walls, bringing out evi- 
dence of stratification; second, the gradual solution of the 
modified inner lamellae, the middle lamella being the most 
resistant; third, the solution of the middle lamella. Newcombe 
(1899.52) repeated and confirmed their observations later and 
