Conditions of its Production in the Plant. 325 



pochlorin-mixture in the cells. The agreement is especially 

 striking in those cases in which the hypochlorin-needles occur 

 in the interior of the cells isolated and perfectly colourless, or 

 form small dendritic aggregates. 



I must, however, report hereafter upon these experiments in 

 distillation on the large scale and the products obtained in 

 them ; I chiefly refer to them here only for the purpose of 

 indicating the probable connexion of their results with the 

 changes which the chlorophyll-bodies undergo anatomically 

 when they have been heated in water or exposed to hot aque- 

 ous vapour. 



In favour of the assumption that hypochlorin is a volatile 

 substance, and that a second non-volatile oil is present with 

 it in the hypochlorin-mixture that may be prepared by hydro- 

 chloric acid, we have further the behaviour under heat of the 

 formed hypochlorin-masses. Thus when green vegetable 

 tissues, in which the hypochlorin-mixture lias been separated 

 by hydrochloric acid, and in which it has already acquired 

 the forms of crystalline masses, scales, or nests, are subse- 

 quently boiled with water, or exposed to aqueous vapour, these 

 segregations gradually lose their crystalline character and, if 

 the action be continued long enough, become converted into 

 clearly spherical oil-drops, which are then unalterable and per- 

 sistent in heat, and, instead of the previous rust-coloured tint 

 of the hypochlorin-masses, acquire more or less of a chloro- 

 phyll-green colour, becoming changed first into olive-green 

 and then to bluish- or grass-green drops. But if long needles 

 and filaments have already separated from the hypochlorin- 

 mixture, the volatilization appears to be more difficult, al- 

 though even these forms are attacked by the hot aqueous 

 vapours if the distillation be continued for a considerable 

 time. 



From the anatomical facts here stated, therefore, the com- 

 position of the chlorophyll-bodies is more complex than it 

 appeared to be from previous representations. The existence 

 of oil in them is no exceptional case (here a substitute for 

 deficient starch) confined to a few plants, or, as some people 

 would have it, a pathological condition ; but it is generally 

 diffused and in essential connexion with the function of the 

 chlorophyll-bodies. At the same time, the hypochlorin is 

 contained in this oil — that colourless volatile substance, crys- 

 tallizable on separation from the chlorophyll-bodies, which is 

 present as a constant associate of chlorophyll in all chloro- 

 phyll-bodies which have been produced in the light. 



Further, the phenomena which accompany the separation of 

 the oil from the fundamental substance also furnish us with 



