SUGGESTIONS.—_To test for chlorophyll._ =84.= Purchase about a
gill of wood alcohol. Secure a leaf of geranium, clover, or other
plant that has been exposed to sunlight for a few hours, and,
after dipping it for a minute in boiling water, put it in a white
cup with sufficient alcohol to cover. Place the cup in a shallow
pan of hot water on the stove where it is not hot enough for the
alcohol to take fire. After a time the chlorophyll is dissolved
by the alcohol which has become an intense green. Save this leaf
for the starch experiment (Exercise 85). Without chlorophyll, the
plant cannot appropriate the carbon dioxide of the air. _Starch
and photosynthesis._ =85.= Starch is present in the green leaves
which have been exposed to sunlight; but in the dark no starch can
be formed from carbon dioxide. Apply iodine to the leaf from which
the chlorophyll was dissolved in the previous experiment. Note that
the leaf is coloured purplish-brown throughout. The leaf contains
starch. =86.= Secure a leaf from a plant which has been in the
dark for about two days. Dissolve the chlorophyll as before, and
attempt to stain this leaf with iodine. No purplish-brown colour is
produced. This shows that the starch manufactured in the leaf may
be entirely removed during darkness. =87.= Secure a plant which has
been kept in darkness for twenty-four hours or more. Split a small
cork and pin the two halves on opposite sides of one of the leaves,
as shown in Fig. 120. Place the plant in the sunlight again. After
a morning of bright sunshine dissolve the chlorophyll in this leaf
with alcohol; then stain the leaf with the iodine. Notice that the
leaf is stained deeply except where the cork was; there sunlight
and carbon dioxide were excluded, Fig. 121. There is no starch
in the covered area. =88.= Plants or parts of plants that have
developed no chlorophyll can form no starch. Secure a variegated
leaf of coleus, ribbon grass, geranium, or of any plant showing
both white and green areas. On a day of bright sunshine, test one
of these leaves by the alcohol and iodine method for the presence
of starch. Observe that the parts devoid of green colour have
formed no starch. However, after starch has once been formed in the
leaves, it may be changed into soluble substances and removed, to
be again converted into starch in certain other parts of the living
tissues. _To test the giving off of oxygen by day._ =89.= Make the
experiment illustrated in Fig. 122. Under a funnel in a deep glass
jar containing fresh spring or stream water place fresh pieces
of the common waterweed elodea (or anacharis). Have the funnel
considerably smaller than the vessel, and support the funnel well
up from the bottom so that the plant can more readily get all the
carbon dioxide available in the water. Why would boiled water be
undesirable in this experiment? For a home-made glass funnel, crack
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