The phosphatides of forage grasses

A RECENT investigation by In the preliminary investigations of the grasses the methods of these workers for the preparation and purification of leaf phosphatides were applied, but were not very successful for two reasons. In the first place the grass blades con- tained a higher proportion of solids, and especially of fibre, than cabbage leaves, consequently the grinding operations necessary to prepare the ether extract from the fresh material were very laborious; further, the percentage of phosphatide in the ether extract was low, so that 20 kg. samples of fresh grass gave only 2-4 g. of crude phosphatide. In the second place the treatment necessary for the preparation of pure phosphatidic acid resulted in the forma- tion of emulsions. These are to be expected when working with any extract containing phosphatides, but in the present case they were far more difficult to break than those which had been encountered during the purification of the cabbage phosphatides. The presence of phosphatidic acid was readily proved, but the yields were disappointingly low, and attempts to separate and purify it by taking advantage of the water-solubility of the sodium salt showed that a large proportion of the crude phosphatide fraction was non- acidic in character, and was therefore essentially different from that found in the cabbage.