ASPARAGINE (C5II,N206,2110) is a crystalline substance which exists ready formed in common asparagus, in the marsh-mallow, in comfrey, in potatoes, in chestnuts, in the leaves'of the deadly nightshade, in licorice root, in the milky juice of the lettuce, in the tubers of the dahlia, and in the young shoots of vetches, peas, beans. etc. According to Piria. the young shoots of these plants. when formed hi the light, contain as much asparagine as when they are grown in the dark, but the asparagine disappears as the plant arrives at the flowering stage. Other chemists, including Pasteur, find th t vetches grown in light are free from asparagine. This substance is readily obtained from the expressed juice of the young shoots of asparagus, of young vetches, etc., which, after filtra tion and evaporation to a sirup, soon deposits it in crystalline prisms of a right rhombic form. These crystals dissolve freely in boiling water, the cooled solution having a mawkish and cooling taste, and a slight acid reaction. Asparagine exhibits two remark
able transformations. (1.) When its aqueous solution is with alkalies or acids it is decomposed into aspartic acid and ammonia; from this and other reac tions, there is no doubt that it should be regarded, according to modern views, as the amide (q.v.) of aspartic acid. (2.) While a solution of pure asparagine-crystals remains unchanged, if any 'coloring matter is present the solution passes into fermentation, and the whole of the asparagine is converted, by the assimilation of hydrogen, from the pigment into succinate of ammonia, a reaction which may be expressed as follows: Asparagine. Succinate of Ammonia.
+ H2 = Like most of the amides, this substance unites both with acids and alkalies. but the resulting compounds arc of little general interest. That asparagine plays an important part in the physiology of plants, is obvious from its wide distribution.