102 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
Bb, when the plants were just out of flower, and the youngest anthers 
had all fallen. 
C, collected 21 September; seeds considerably more mature than those 
of sample B, though still soft and unripe. 
These samples of unripe seeds were dried in the air, immediately after 
collection, and were analyzed in the air-dried condition. But the amounts 
of water found in them, viz., 5.67 % in A, 5.97%, in B, and 7.199%, in C, 
were very different from the proportion (11.56%) that had previously been 
found in the mature seeds. In order to compare the results more readily, 
I have consequently excluded the item water from the following statement 
of the analyses. The lines marked I., and II. in the following table, refer to - 
the percentage composition of the dry substance in the mature seeds, as 
calculated from the analyses given on page 99. The line III. represents 
the mean of Nos. I. and II. 
ree 
Albuminoids. 
Carbohydrates in- 
cluding fat. 
Cellulose, free from 
Nitrogen 
Crude ash, 
Dry matter in orig- 
inal substance. 
ae free from C & 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
1.12-1.24 
1.50-1.59 
1.46-1.65 
(124-1.97 
1.36-1.39 
1.32 
ee ae 
mH & 
6 
It will be seen, from these analyses, that the immature seeds con- 
tained a much larger proportion of cellulose and of ash ingredients 
than the seeds which had become ripe. The proportion of carbohy- 
drates, on the contrary, increases very much, and the proportion of fat 
somewhat as the seeds ripen. It would seem, however, that the per- 
centage proportion of albuminoids in the riper seeds is kept down, or 
perhaps even lessened, not by any removal or change in the absolute 
amount of these constituents at the time of ripening, but by the more 
rapid accumulation of carbohydrates in tle seeds at this particular 
period of growth, whereby the relative amount of the albuminoids is 
made less. 
The foregoing results are consistent in the main with those obtained by 
Arendt in his elaborate investigation of the development of the oat plant,* 
* Arendt, ‘Das Wachsthum der Haferpflanze,” Leipzig, 1859. 
I 
