REMARKS  ON  TARAXACUM  ROOT. 
389 
While  upon  the  subject  of  taraxacum,  he  said  he  should  like  to 
notice  another  circumstance  connected  with  it,  although  not  al- 
luded to  in  the  paper  just  read  by  Mr.  Hills ;  he  referred  to  the 
sweetish  taste  which  the  root  possessed  (as  first  noticed  by  Mr. 
Squire)  after  a  frost,  and  which  he  had  himself  already  referred 
to  above.  At  present  no  explanation,  so  far  as  he  was  aware, 
had  been  given  of  the  reason  of  this  change  of  the  taste  of 
the  root  from  its  ordinary  bitterness  at  other  seasons.  He 
had  himself  an  opinion  upon  the  subject  which  he  would  now 
lay  before  the  meeting,  but  in  the  first  place  he  must  refer  to 
changes  of  a  somewhat  analogous  nature  which  had  been  observ- 
ed in  other  plants  and  their  parts  under  the  influence  of  a  frost. 
Thus,  potatoes  when  frozen  became  sweet,  which  change  was 
without  doubt  due  to  the  conversion  of  their  starch  into  sugar 
by  the  action  of  diastase.  A  similar  conversion  of  starch  into 
dextrin,  and  ultimately  into  sugar,  he  believed  to  take  place  fre- 
quently (much  more  so  than  was  generally  supposed),  in  the 
roots  and  other  organs  of  plants  during  the  winter  months  by  the 
action  of  frost ;  hence  the  quantity  of  starch  present  in  any 
particular  plant  or  its  several  organs  at  a  certain  period  would 
depend  in  a  great  degree  upon  the  temperature  to  which  it  had 
been  exposed.  He  said  that  there  were  many  important  conclu- 
sions arising  from  a  knowledge  of  the  above  facts,  but  that  was 
not  the  time  to  allude  to  them  ;  he  should  therefore  confine  him- 
self then  solely  to  their  application  to  the  subject  before  them,  as 
follows; — Taraxacum  root  contained  a  substance  called  inuline, 
which  possessed  several  properties  in  common  with  starch,  to 
which  it  must  therefore  be  regarded  as  very  closely  allied  in  its 
nature.  Now  inuline  was  even  more  readily  coverted  into  sugar 
than  starch,  and  hence  he  believed  an  explanation  was  at  once 
afforded  of  the  sweetish  taste  acquired  by  taraxacum  root  after 
a  frost — namely,  the  conversion  of  the  inuline  into  sugar  under 
the  influence  of  frost  in  the  same  way  as  the  starch  of  potatoes 
experienced  a  similar  change  under  the  like  influence.  That 
this  was  the  true  explanation  of  the  change  of  taste  in  taraxa- 
cum root  was  further  proved  by  its  analysis  at  different  periods 
of  the  year  :  thus,  Overbeck  found  that  the  roots  which  had 
been  collected  in  the  spring  contained  but  very  little  inuline, 
while  one  pound  of  the  dried  roots  obtained  in  the  autumn  yield- 
