III. On the germination of the seed of the castor-oil plant ( Ricinus communis )

The older views of the transformations of the reserve products of this plant, as advanced by Sachs and other writers, took account only of the oil present in the cells, and were briefly, that it undergoes by oxidation a conversion into carbohydrate, the idea of this change being chiefly based on the observation that as the oil disappears from the endosperm during germination, starch appears in various parts of the embryo. Later writers have suggested the existence of a ferment, splitting up the fat into glycerine and fatty acid, and the further transformation of the latter into the starch.