A contribution to the pharmacognosy of official strophanthus seed : read before the British Pharmaceutical Conference in London, July 1900 / by Pierre Élie Félix Perrédès.

  • Perrédès, Pierre Élie Félix.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: A contribution to the pharmacognosy of official strophanthus seed : read before the British Pharmaceutical Conference in London, July 1900 / by Pierre Élie Félix Perrédès. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mass itself ; the oil is intimately bound np with it as in the embryo, and no oil drops are visible in a glycerin mount. Em- bedded in this gelatinous substance, numerous starch grains occur (st., Fig. 53); the size of these may vary from 10/x (O'Ol mm.) to minute specks too small for measurement; the latter are generally grouped together round the nucleus {lit. sf.^ Fig. 53) ; the larger ones are distributed throughout the whole protoplasmic layer, and may be ovoid, nearly triangular, kidney-shaped, or club-shaped (Fig. 60). In the centre of each grain there is usually a depres- sion, which becomes quite evident when the grains are treated with iodine in chloral-hydrate (Fig. 61). The distribution of starch in the albumen is somewhat^ as follows : The greatest development occurs at the base of the seed, the least at the apex and under the raphe ; it is usually more abundant at the lateral edges than on the flat surfaces. In all these places it is most abundant in the middle portion of the albumen, diminishing appreciably towards the exterior, and very considerably towards the interior. Besides starch, proteid bodies,^ which look very much like aleurone grains, occur embedded in the protoplasmic ground-mass; these are shewn in Fig. 62. Some of them appear to contain crystalloids as well as globoids. They are usually more variable in size than those of the embryo, and may attain 13-75/x (0'01375 mm.), but seldom exceed 10/x (0-01 mm.). They are best seen after warming a section, deprived of its oil, with Millon’s reagent. In any case the existence of aleurone grains in such highly vacuo- lated cells is suspicious, to say the least, and I cannot help thinking that there is something here which still requires ex- planation. The contents of the seed-coats are principally mucilage, and green or brownish-green pigment. Both of these substances are contained almost entirely in the sub-epidermal layers ; the muci- lage in the cells that expand on soaking, and also in the innermost layers ; the pigment, which probably consists of chlorophyll, in all the cells to some extent, but especially in the region which has 1 Everyone who has published a description of the structure of Stro- phanthus seeds admits that they contain proteids or aleurone grains in the albumen, but there the agreement ends. Prof. Hartwich says in his second paper that he has found the aleurone grains of Strophanthus agree point for point with Herr Ltidtke’s leguminous type. Now, I have read through Ltidtke’s leguminous types in Bring sileivi's Jahrh.., and also in the Berichte der Pliarmaceut. Gesellschaft, and the only reference I can find to albumen (endosperm) cells is to the Aleuronschichtor outermost layer only of the albumen (endosperm) where the aleurone grains are very small, and have no inclusions.