Natural auxins 



to neutral auxins, that ammonia, under certain circumstances, leads to the 

 hydrolysis of lAE ( Table 3). Such an hydrolysis was not apparent (using only 

 a colorimetric detecdon of auxins) with the ?\yopropanol solvent. However, 



lOr 



Acefonifnile 



■j/\E' \zoPropano/ 



oio~ZO 30 W 50 eO 70 80 90 WO 10 80 30 W 50 BO 70 80 SO 100 



IVafer — » % 



Figure 7. Effect on the R/s of I A A, IBA, IAN, andlAE of various percentages of acetonitrile {left) 

 and isopropanol (right) in water. 



the possibility that ammonia might affect natural auxins more labile than 

 lAE led us to start a new search for a good solvent to separate the acid 

 auxins. Knowing that ammonia did not change the R/s appreciably, we 

 simply omitted it and used Z5opropanol+ water (80;20) (Nitsch and Nitsch, 



Table 3 

 Hydrolysis of ethylindole acetate by ammonia on paper chromatograms 

 All the chromatograms were equilibrated overnight, then run for about 8 hours at room 

 temperature in the dark. Only ethylindole acetate (4 y) was applied to each chromatogram 

 initially. The spots were revealed with either the Gordon and Weber or the Ehrlich reagent. 



12 



