from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Any of a group of green pigments that are found in the chloroplasts of plants and in other photosynthetic organisms such as cyanobacteria, especially:
- n. A waxy blue-black microcrystalline green-plant pigment, C55H72MgN4O5, with a characteristic blue-green alcohol solution. Also called chlorophyll a.
- n. A similar green-plant pigment, C55H70MgN4O6, having a brilliant green alcohol solution. Also called chlorophyll b.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Any of a group of green pigments that are found in the chloroplasts of plants and in other photosynthetic organisms such as cyanobacteria.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. Literally, leaf green; a green granular matter formed in the cells of the leaves (and other parts exposed to light) of plants, to which they owe their green color, and through which all ordinary assimilation of plant food takes place. Similar chlorophyll granules have been found in the tissues of the lower animals.
- n. any of a group of green pigments found in photosynthetic organisms. Chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b are found in higher plants and green algae; chlorophyll c is found in certain types of marine algae. Chemically, it has a porphyrin ring with a magnesium ion bound to the four central nitrogens, and has a phytyl side chain. It is essential for photosynthesis in most plants. Chlorophyll a has formula C55H72N4O5Mg.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. any of a group of green pigments found in photosynthetic organisms; there are four naturally occurring forms
The Greek chloros, from which the word chlorophyll is said to be derived, is also a distant cousin.
Looks like the "middle ground" is where the quantum mystics hang out and propose unnecessary quantum explanations for well-understood chemical mutation processes based on an extremely vague analogy between photon capture in chlorophyll and base pair mutations in DNA.
And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain "chlorophyll - the 'blood' of the plant - which will really oxygenate your blood."'
Another biologically important example where femtochemistry has explained efficient energy conversion is in chlorophyll molecules, which capture light in photosynthesis.
In all types of photosynthesis, the light energy absorbed by chlorophyll is transferred to membrane-bound protein-pigment complexes, known as reaction centers.
A very important section of Willstätter's work on the chemical structure of chlorophyll is represented by his investigations into the colour components, the "chlorophyllin", and other "phyllins" and derivatives formed from it.
He has shown that chlorophyll is an ester, which on saponification with alkali can be split up into a previously unknown alcohol called "phytol", which represents about one third of the molecule, and a colour component called
The crystallized chlorophyll is a laboratory product, an alkyl ester, which lacks phytol.
In these investigations, which concerned the pigment nucleus both in chlorophyll and in haemoglobin, he has made several new and important observations regarding the pyrroles and their position in this nucleus; in particular, however, he has shown that from these two pigments the same parent porphyrin, "aetioporphyrin", can be prepared, whose molecule has retained the essential characteristics of the pigment nucleus.
The green colour of the foliage of leafy plants is due to the existence of a substance called chlorophyll, which is almost universally developed in the leaves under the action of light.