296 
Notes  and  News. 
Am.  Jour.  PharnJ 
May,  1896. 
when  to  this  soil  was  added  a  small  amount  of  earth  brought  from  Japan,  and 
presumably  infected  with  the  bacteria  associated  with  the  plant,  tubercles  were 
abundantly  formed,  and  the  plants  grew  more  thriftily  than  under  previous 
conditions.  The  soil  came  from  Japan  in  well-soldered  metallic  boxes.  It  was 
black,  uncommonly  light  volcanic  ash.  It  was  moist  when  it  arrived,  and  con- 
tained fragments  of  the  roots  of  the  soja  plants  which  had  been  cultivated 
therein. 
While  the  observation  is  not  wholly  new,  it  confirms  some  kindred  results, 
and  tends  to  open  up  still  farther  the  possibility  of  more  successful  cultivation 
of  Papilionacece  in  infected  soil.  Gonnermann  (Land.  w.  Jahr-b.  xxii,  1894) 
has  apparently  demonstrated  that  root  tubercles  are  not  produced  by  only  one 
species  of  bacterium,  varying,  as  some  have  thought,  according  to  the  kind  of 
soil  in  which  they  occur. 
Although  much  advance  has  been  made  in  the  direction  of  settling  some  of 
these  disputed  points,  a  great  deal  remains  to  be  learned  in  regard  to  turning 
the  observations  to  practical  account.  Two  of  our  Southern  plants,  the  so-called 
"cow-pea  "  in  its  multiform  varieties,  and  Arachis,  appear  to  be  the  best  sub- 
jects of  research  in  this  department.  The  increasing  utility  of  the  former  as  a 
direct  or  indirect  fertilizer,  and  of  the  latter  in  its  new  applications  in  the  pro- 
duction of  a  food,  after  the  extraction  of  the  oil,  indicates  the  desirability  of 
experiments  at  the  Southern  stations. — American  Journal  of  Science. 
Formation  of  Chlorophyll  and  Starch. — A  very  extended  series  of  observations 
on  the  mode  of  formation  of  starch  grains  and  chlorophyll  bodies  in  plants  has 
led  M.  E.  Belzung  to  the  following  general  conclusions:  The  first  process  which 
takes  place  in  the  embryo  is  the  formation  of  starch,  the  result  of  the  activity  of 
the  protoplasm,  the  chorophyll  body  being  a  secondary  formation.  With  but 
few  exceptions  the  chlorophyll  pigment  is  diffused  through  the  protoplasm  of 
the  young  embryo.  The  substratum  of  the  future  chlorophyll  body — leucite  or 
plastid — is  always  fully  formed  by  the  time  the  seed  arrives  at  maturity;  the  pro- 
toplasm has  always  a  reticulate  structure;  it  is  the  protoplasm  of  the  amyliferous 
vacuoles  which  constitutes  the  chromatophore  or  leucite.  Those  starch  grains 
which  are  destined  to  constitute  the  reserve  food  material  in  the  ripe  seed  are 
an  exception  to  this  rule,  and  increase  in  the  meshes  where  they  are  originally 
deposited.  In  proportion  as  the  embryo  becomes  green,  and  the  mass  of  green 
corpuscles  more  abundant,  the  starch  grains  are  resorbed  ;  they  form  a  part  of 
the  material  for  building  up  the  green  chlorophyll  grains.  In  adult  green 
organs,  especially  leaves,  the  starch  grains  which  are  formed  in  the  light  in  the 
chlorophyll  bodies  are  a  result  of  the  assimilating  power  of  these  latter, 
being  one  of  the  products  of  the  substance  itself  of  the  chlorophyll 
bodies,  a  kind  of  secretion  from  the  green  substance.  The  resorbtion  of  the 
chlorophyll,  which  in  leaves  takes  place  only  at  the  period  of  the  autumnal 
fall,  is,  on  fruits,  effected  almost  entirely  before  they  ripen.  The  two  essential 
phases  in  the  life  of  a  plant — the  embryonal  phase,  during  which  the  green 
cell  is  built  up  at  the  expense  of  materials  which  it  has  not  elaborated,  and  the 
adult  phase,  in  which  its  formative  activity  is  manifested  by  new  embryonal 
conditions — constitute  a  remarkable  example  of  organic  reversibility. — Morot's 
Journal  de  Botanique,  vol.  ix,  1895  (through  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal^ 
January  25,  1896). 
