(c) Take two leaves of bean seedling or coleus, test one for sugar and the other for starch. Both are present.
(d) Procure some maple sap in the spring, or in the winter months make a decoction of the broken tips of young branches of the sugar maple by boiling them in water in a test tube. To the sap or cool decoction add Fehling’s solution. No precipitate appears after standing. Now heat the same solution to the boiling point, and the precipitate forms, showing the presence of cane sugar in the maple sap which was converted to glucose and fruit sugar by boiling in the presence of an alkali.
(e) Scrape out some of the tissue from a sugar beet root, cover with water in a test tube and add Fehling’s solution. No change takes place after standing. Boil the same solution and the precipitate forms, showing the presence of cane sugar, inverted to grape sugar and fruit sugar by the hot alkali.
159. How starch is changed to sugar.—We have seen that in many plants the carbohydrate formed as the result of carbon dioxide assimilation is stored as starch. This substance being insoluble in water must be changed to sugar, which is soluble before it can be used as food or transported to other parts of the plant. This is accomplished through the action of certain enzymes, principally diastase. This substance has the power of acting upon starch under proper conditions of temperature and moisture, causing it to take up the elements of water, and so to become sugar.
This process takes place commonly in the leaves where starch is formed, but especially in seeds, tubers (during the sprouting, etc.), and other parts which the plant uses as storehouses for starch food. It is probable that the same conditions of temperature and moisture which favor germination or active growth are also favorable to the production of diastase.
160. Experiments to show the action of diastase.—(a) Place a bit of starch half as large as a pea in a test tube, and cover with a weak solution[11] (about ⅕ per cent) of commercial taka diastase. After it has stood in a warm place for five or ten minutes test with Fehling’s solution. The precipitate of cuprous oxide appears showing that some of the starch has been changed to sugar. By using measured quantities, and by testing with iodine at frequent intervals, it can be determined just how long it takes a given quantity of diastase to change a known quantity of starch. In this connection one should first test a portion of the same starch with Fehling’s solution to show that no sugar is present.
(b) Repeat the above experiment using a little tissue from a potato, and some from a corn seed.
(c) Take 25 germinating barley seeds in which the radicle is just appearing. Grind up thoroughly in a mortar with about three parts of water. After this has stood for ten or fifteen minutes, filter. Fill a test tube one-third full of water, add a piece of starch half the size of a pea or less, and boil the mixture to make starch-paste. Add the barley extract. Put in a warm place and test from time to time with iodine. The first samples so treated will be blue, later ones violet, brown, and finally colorless, showing that the starch has all disappeared. This is due to the action of the diastase which was present in the germinating seeds, and which was dissolved out and added to the starch mixture. The office of this diastase is to change the starch in the seeds to sugar. Germinating wheat is sweet, and it is a matter of common observation that bread made from sprouted wheat is sweet.
(d) Put a little starch-paste in a test tube and cover it with saliva from the mouth. After ten or fifteen minutes test with Fehling’s solution. A strong reaction appears showing how quickly and effectively saliva acts in converting starch to sugar. Successive tests with iodine will show the gradual disappearance of the starch.
161. These experiments have shown us that diastase from three different sources can act upon starch converting it into sugar. The active principle in the saliva is an animal diastase (ptyalin), which is necessary as one step in the digestion of starch food in animals. The taka diastase is derived from a fungus (Eurotium oryzæ) which feeds on the starch in rice grains converting it into sugar which the fungus absorbs for food. The malt diastase and leaf diastase are formed by the seed plants. That in seeds converts the starch to sugar which is absorbed by the embryo for food. That in the leaf converts the starch into sugar so that it can be transported to other parts of the plant to be used in building new tissue, or to be stored again in the form of starch (example, the potato, in seeds, etc.). The starch is formed in the leaf during the daylight. The light renders the leaf diastase inactive. But at night the leaf diastase becomes active and converts the starch made during the day. Starch is not soluble in water, while the sugar is, and the sugar in solution is thus easily transported throughout the plant. In those green plants which do not form starch in their leaves (sugar beet, corn, and many monocotyledons), grape sugar and fruit sugar are formed in the green parts as the result of photosynthesis. In some, like the corn, the grape sugar formed in the leaves is transported to other parts of the plant, and some of it is stored up in the seed as starch. In others like the sugar beet the glucose and fruit sugar formed in the leaves flow to other parts of the plant, and much of it is stored up as cane sugar in the beet root. The process of photosynthesis probably proceeds in the same way in all cases up to the formation of the grape sugar and fruit sugar in the leaves. In the beet, corn, etc., the process stops here, while in the bean, clover, and most dicotyledons the process is carried one step farther in the leaf and starch is formed.