CHLOR OPHyLL-BODIES. 



85 



•a still finer organisation, which is only to be detected by means of strong magnifying 

 powers. This consists in reticulated fibrillae, or in a system, of very small chambers, 

 the walls of which appear to be relatively more solid and the contents more fluid : as 

 yet, however, but little is certainly known concerning this very fine structure. 



We may regard the chlorophyll-bodies as a constituent of the protoplasm. 

 These generally appear in the form of roundish or polygonal granular structures of 

 soft consistence; in many lower Algae they occur also in the form of bands or 

 plates with similar properties. The chlorophyll-bodies, whatever form they possess, 

 always lie embedded in the substance of the protoplasm, and usually in a middle layer 

 of the peripheral protoplasm; so that they 

 are separated from the cell-wall itself as well 

 as from the saij€p^vity of the cell, by a layer 

 of colourless protoplasm. If parts of plants 

 containing chlorophyll are placed in strong 

 alcohol, the green colouring matter becomes 

 dissolved in the latter, and imparts to it a 

 magnificent colouration, which in transmitted 

 light appears green, and in reflected sunlight 

 blood-red. This green colouring matter, dis- 

 tinguished by the fluorescence just indicated 

 and by other optically remarkable properties, is, 

 however, only a very small part of the chlo- 

 rophyll-granule relatively to its mass; for in 

 cells extracted with alcohol the latter are 

 found still of their original size and form, but 

 now colourless. It is easily recognised that 

 the proper substance of the chlorophyll-gra- 

 nules is a colourless mass, which was homo- 

 geneously permeated, wholly or in part, by 

 the colouring matter. The colourless matrix 

 remaining behind after the extraction, ex- 

 hibits towards chemical reagents the essential 

 properties of proteid substances; and the 

 origin of the chlorophyll-granules in young 

 cells, as well as the fact that in many lower 

 plants the whole protoplasmic body of a cell, 

 or the greater part of it, behaves like a 

 chlorophyll-body, leaves no doubt that a chlo- 

 rophyll-granule is practically a portion of the protoplasm tinged with chlorophyll 

 colouring-matter. This, however, does not interfere with the fact that the chlo- 

 rophyll-granules conduct themselves in many respects like individual independent 

 organisms inside the protoplasm : for they can not only grow and under certain 

 circumstances change their form; but they divide also, becoming constricted in 

 the middle until the two halves separilte entirely from one another. By means of 

 such divisions into two — which are easy to discover and to follow in the leaves 

 of the Mosses, in the cells of the Characece, and in the prothallia of Ferns, and which 



Fig. 8z.—Fuftaria hygrgmetrica {a moss). A cell 

 of a leaf with .protoplasm and chlorophyll-grains em- 

 bedded in it; B chlorophyll-grains with their enclosed 

 starch ; *, *', ff a chlorophyll-grain dividing •,ftg-& chloro- 

 phyll-grain disorganised by water. 



