Word Finder - chlorophyll

definition

Any of a group of green pigments that are found in the chloroplasts of plants and in other photosynthetic organisms such as cyanobacteria.

The relation of the chlorophyll to light has been studied by many observers.

The guard-cells contain chlorophyll, which is absent from typical epidermal cells, the latter acting as a tissue for water storage.

Chlorophyll is not soluble in water, nor in acids or alkalies without decomposition.

The first chemical change suggested is an interaction between carbon dioxide and water, under the influence of light acting through chlorophyll, which leads to the simultaneous formation of formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide.

Each is a small protoplasmic body, in the meshes of whose vubstance the green coloring matter chlorophyll is contained in some form of solution.

Proteid Formation.We have seen that it has been suggested that the chlorophyll apparatus may perhaps be concerned in the manufacture of proteids as well as of carbohydrates.

It is not certain either whether the action of the chlorophyll apparatus is confined to the manufacture of carbohydrates or whether it is concerned, and if so how far, with the construction of proteids also.

These constitute a hypodermal layer, beneath which the chlorophyll cells of the parenchyma are densely packed together, and are elongated in a direction vertical to the surface of the leaf, forming the palisade tissue.

As much sugar as is produced in excess of the immediate requirements of the cell is converted into the insoluble form of starch by the plastidsof the chlorophyll apparatus, and is so withdrawn from the sphere of action, thereby enabling the construction of further quantities of sugar to take place.

Monotropas afford an extreme case of it, having lost their chlorophyll almost entirely, and come to depend upon the Fungi for their nutrinient.

Jacobsen on some occasions found water in the surface layers of the Baltic supersaturated with oxygen, which he ascribed to the action of the chlorophyll in vegetable plankton; in other cases when examining the nearly stagnant water from deep basins he found a deficiency of oxygen due no doubt to the withdrawal of oxygen from solution, by the respiration of the animals and by the oxidation of the deposits on the bottom.

Nearly all bacteria, owing to the absence of chlorophyll, are saprophytic or parasitic forms. Most of them are colourless, but FIG.

The principal symptom may show itself in general pallor, including all cases where the normal healthy green hue is replaced by a sickly yellowish hue indicating that the chlorophyll apparatus is deficient.

The epidermal cells may contain chlorophyll.

The yeast plant and its allies are saprophytes and form no chlorophyll.

In fleshy leaves which contain a great bulk of tissue in relation to their chlorophyll content, the central mesophyll contains little or no chlorophyll and acts as waterstorage tissue.

Moreover, although the green portions of the flower do indeed perform the same office as the leaves, the more highly coloured and more specialized portions, which are further removed from the typical leaf-form, do not carry on those processes for which the presence of chlorophyll is essential; and the floral organs may, therefore, in a rough sense, be said to be parasitic upon the green parts.

There is usually distinguishable upon the surface of the oosphere an area free from chlorophyll, known as the receptive spot, at which the fusion with the antherozoid takes place; and in many cases, before fertilization, a small mucilaginous mass has been observed to separate itself off from the oosphere at this point and to escape through the pore.

The palisade layers of the mesophyll contain the larger number of chlorophyll grains (or corpuscles) while the absorption of carbon dioxide is carried on chiefly through the lower epidermis which is generally much richer in stomata.

The cells of these sheaths are often distinguished from the rest of the mesophyll by containing little or no chlorophyll.

The rays which in the absence of the solution of chlorophyll would have occupied those spaces have no power to pass through it, or in other words chlorophyll absorbs those particular rays of light which are missing.

The want of chlorophyll restricts their mode of life - which is rarely aquatic - since they are therefore unable to decompose the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, and renders them dependent on other plants or (rarely) animals for their carbonaceous food-materials.

It has been shown by means of spectroscopic observations that the green colour of the elytra, &c., is due to the presence of chlorophyll; and that the variations of the spectral bands are sufficient, after the lapse of many years, to indicate with some certainty the kind of leaves on which the insects were feeding shortly before they were killed.

Photosynthesis would not be possible if plants did not have the green tint that is given by chlorophyll.

The ability to control odors is attained by the use of natural chlorophyll.

Although some sources may say that Blanka's beastly appearance is a result of Shadoloo genetic experimentation, official reports indicate that his trademark green skin came from years of rubbing against chlorophyll.

Green drinks made with young barley are believed to cleanse the blood and supply chlorophyll and nutrients for maintaining healthy tissue.

It is sometimes forgotten, when discussing questions of animal nutrition, that all the food materials of all living organisms are prepared originally from inorganic substances in exactly the same way, in exactly the same place, and by the same machinery, which is the chlorophyll apparatus of the vegetable kingdom.

We just can't see them in the summer, because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll.

The plant, on the other hand, if it be a green plant, containing chlorophyll, is capable, in the presence of light, of building up both carbohydrate material and proteid material from inorganic salts; if it be a fungus, devoid of chlorophyll, whilst it is dependent on pre-existing carbohydrate material and is capable of absorbing, like an animal, proteid material as such, it is able to build up its proteid food from material chemically simpler than proteid.

Porphyrin-An organic compound found in living things that founds the foundation structure for hemoglobin, chlorophyll, and other respiratory pigments.

Green drinks made with young barley are believed to cleanse the blood and supply chlorophyll and nutrients for tissue repair.

In parasites (Lathraea, Orobanche) and in plants growing on decaying vegetable matter (saprophytes), in which no chlorophyll is formed, these scales are the only leaves produced.

The effect is complicated, in the case of chlorophyll and many other bodies, by selective reflexion and fluorescence.

The basal cell has less chlorophyll than the others, and is expanded and fixed firmly to the rock on which the plant grows by the basal surface, rh, thus forming a rudimentary rhizoid.

As the action of the chlorophyll apparatus is directly dependent upon light, and the immediate result of its activity is the building up of complex compounds, it has become usual to speak of the processes it sets up under the name of photosynthesis.

All chlorophyll plants require light, but in very different degrees, as exemplified even in the United Kingdom by the shade-bearing beech and yew contrasted with the light-demanding larch and birch; and as with temperature so with light, every plant and even every organ has its optimum of illumination.

In the Cyanophyceae the contents of the cell are differentiated into a central colorless region, and a peripheral layer containing the chlorophyll and other coloring matters together with granules of a reserve substance called cyanophycin.

Recent experiments show that the influence of electric light on chlorophyll is similar to that of sunlight, and that deficiencies of natural light may to some extent be made good by its use.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that, apart from the chlorophyll function, the physiology of the fungus-cell is fundamentally different from that of ordinary plant-cells.

By virtue of the possession of chlorophyll all algae are capable of utilizing carbonic acid gas as a source of carbon in the presence of sunlight.

The prothalli contain abundant chlorophyll, and are dorsiventral.

A comparison of these various types would appear to indicate that the primitive form of prothallus in the genus was radially symmetrical and contained chlorophyll.

A scientific theory would be âThis leaf contains chlorophyll, this leaf is green.

In the presence of sunlight, tiny plant species called phytoplankton use the nutrients to produce a greenish plant substance called chlorophyll.

This curious plant has no chlorophyll, growing with the aid of a fungus feeding off dead wood.

Thus, when a strong light is viewed through a solution of chlorophyll, the light seen is a brilliant green if the thickness is small, but a deep blood-red for thicker layers.

A database of vertical distributions of chlorophyll in the upwelling system of Western Iberia were used for the analysis.

Because the compounds are extracted from young sprouted organic seeds of these plants, they are also said to include high amounts of chlorophyll and abundant enzymes.

Yellow leaves on a gardenia signal that the plant's mechanism for making chlorophyll, the green color that helps it make food, is seriously disrupted.