A survey was made of the various nitrogenous constituents of the tea plant using paper chromatography. The following parts of the plant were examined: leaves, barkand wood ofstems and roots, feederrootsand fruits (pericarp andcotyledons).Theanine was present in every organ except the fruit and tended to be the major amino acid of the plant. Glutamic acid, aspartic acid and glutamine also occurred universally and in relatively high concentrations, and serine, alanine and y-aminobutyric acid, though generally present, occurred in smaller quantities. The wood of stems and roots contained appreciable quantities of a ninhydrinreactive compound which streaked like histidine. Pipecolic acid was present in appreciable quantities only in the fruits.The amino acids of the hot-water-soluble proteins of the various tissues have been determined and certain differences between them were noted.
The ethanol-insoluble material (e.i.m.) of immature and mature tea leaves was fractionated into hot-water-soluble polysaccharides and proteins, ammonium oxalate-soluble pectic acid, hemicelluloses A and B and a-cellulose, by successive extraction with hot water, ammonium oxalate, sodium hypochlorite and cold alkali. The final residue was termed a-cellulose. The hot-water extract and the hot-water-insoluble residue were found to contain appreciable quantities of protein nitrogen. Each fraction was hydrolysed and the mixture of sugars was separated on paper chromatograms and estimated. It appeared that each stage of the extraction procedure removed from the e.i.m. a complex mixture of polysaccharides. The sugars produced on hydrolysis of the arbitrary fractions from immature and mature leaves were qualitatively similar, although there were quantitative differences and were glucose, galactose, xylose, arabinose, rhamnose, galacturonic acid and an unidentified uronic acid. Maturation was mainly accompanied by an increase in the content of lignin, hemicelluloses and a-cellulose.
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