70 M. Pringsheim on the Action of Light 



which on a large scale, and the determination of its chemical 

 properties, I am still engaged. 



This body, which I call hypochlorin or hypochromyl (be- 

 cause it stands in the closest relation to the chlorophyll and 

 constantly as it were occurs under it), can be with extreme 

 facility brought into view by michrochemistry. In order to see 

 it emerge, we have only to place any chlorophyll-green tissue 

 (no matter from what section of phanerogams or cryptogams) 

 for from twelve to twenty-four hours in diluted hydrochloric 

 acid. The hypochlorin then makes its appearance in the form 

 of extremely minute viscous drops which grow larger by accu- 

 mulation, or masses of a semifluid consistence, which gradually 

 become indistinctly crystalline scales or tufts, and finally grow 

 out into indistinctly crystalline needles. 



This body proves, from all its microchemical characters, to 

 be an unctuous substance bathing the elementary substance 

 of the chlorophyll-bodies, soluble in alcohol, ether, oil of tur- 

 pentine, and benzole, insoluble in water and salt-solutions, 

 and, after separation from the elementary substance, hardening 

 in a shorter or longer space of time, perhaps through oxida- 

 tion, into an obscurely crystalline body possessing all the 

 properties of a resin or species of wax (in the sense of the 

 older pharmacological chemistry). In their indistinctly deve- 

 loped forms, the needles formed by this substance remind one, 

 in some measure, of the various shapes of bacilli of the bloom 

 on the surface of the leaves in the Musaceee and Gramineae — 

 for example, in Heliconia farinosa and the sugar-cane. From 

 all these properties I have come to the opinion (with the reser- 

 vation of a more exact chemical analysis which I contemplale 

 making of it) that this body represents an ethereal oil which 

 becomes resinous, if already in the ground-mass itself it does 

 not form a mixture of several bodies of that kind (after the 

 manner of the so-called balsams). But, apart from its more 

 intimate chemical constitution, so much is certain, that this 

 body, with its striking and easily demonstrable properties, is 

 a constant and never-failing companion of the green colouring- 

 matter in the ground-mass of the chlorophyll-bodies. 



It is in fact never absent from any chlorophyll-green plant. 

 It is more generally distributed in the chlorophyll-bodies than 

 their starch and oily matters, and appears with them both in 

 chlorophyll-bodies containing starch and in those which carry 

 fat, and also in those containing both fat and starch. It is 

 only those plants which possess no proper green chlorophyll 

 (Phycochromacea?, Diatomese, Fucacea?, and Florideae) that 

 appear to exhibit a different behaviour ; on this, however, my 

 investigations are not yet concluded. 



