Light and Air necessary for Starch Making.—If we pin strips of black cloth, such as alpaca, over some of the leaves of a growing hydrangea which has previously been placed in a dark room for a few hours, and then put the plant in direct sunlight for an hour or two, we are ready to test for starch. We then remove some of the covered leaves and extract the chlorophyll with wood alcohol (because the green color of the chlorophyll interferes with the blue color of the starch test). A test then shows that starch is present only in the portions of the leaves exposed to sunlight. From this experiment we infer that the sun has something to do with starch making in a leaf. The necessity of a part of the air (carbon dioxide) for starch making may also easily be proved, for the parts of leaves covered with vaseline will be found to contain no starch, while parts of the leaf without vaseline, but exposed to the sun and air, do contain starch.
Diagram to show starch making. Read the text carefully and then explain this diagram.
Air is necessary for the process of starch making in a leaf, not only because carbon dioxide gas is absorbed (there are from three to four parts in ten thousand present in the atmosphere), but also because the leaf is alive and must have oxygen in order to do work. This oxygen it takes from the air around it.
Diagram to illustrate the formation of starch in a leaf.
Comparison of Starch Making and Milling.—The manufacture of starch by the green leaf is not easily understood. The process has been compared to the milling of grain. In this case the mill is the green part of the leaf. The sun furnishes the motive power, the chloroplasts constitute the machinery, and soil water and carbon dioxide are the raw products taken into the mill. The manufactured product is starch, and a certain by-product (corresponding to the waste in a mill) is also given out. This by-product is oxygen. To understand the process fully, we must refer to a small portion of the leaf shown below. Here we find that the cells of the green layer of the leaf, under the upper epidermis, perform most of the work. The carbon dioxide is taken in through the stomata and reaches the green cells by way of the intercellular spaces and by osmosis from cell to cell. Water reaches the green cells through the veins. It then passes into the cells by osmosis, and there becomes part of the cell sap. The light of the sun easily penetrates to the cells of the palisade layer, giving the energy needed to make the starch. This whole process is a very delicate one, and will take place only when external conditions are favorable. For example, too much heat or too little heat stops starch making in the leaf. This building up of food and the release of oxygen by the plant in the presence of sunlight is called photosynthesis.
Diagram (after Stevens) to illustrate the processes of breathing and food making in the cells of a green leaf in the sunlight.
Manufacture of Fats.—Inasmuch as tiny droplets of oil are found inside the chlorophyll bodies in the leaf, we believe that fats, too, are made there, probably by a transformation of the starch already manufactured.