What about plants having colored leaves? How is it that new leaves which look dark red in colour in several plants turn green? Do plants having reddish or yellowish leaves also carry out photosynthesis? What made plants carry out photosynthesis while even green coloured animals (like some birds )could not? Questions like these remained challenges until scientists could isolate the green coloured substance from plant parts and study its nature.
Establishment of Ingenhousz’s proposition came after several experiments till the mid 20th century when scientists could also locate the site of photosynthesis and even isolate it. Around four decades after Ingenhousz’s proposition scientists could only isolate the green substance to observe its nature and find out whether photosynthesis could be carried out with it. This had become possible in the year 1817 due to the work of two scientists Pelletier and Caventou who obtained an extract of the green colored substance and named it as chlorophyll means green leaf.
It was also found that the other pigments would aid in the process of photosynthesis by passing on the energy of sunlight trapped by them to chlorophyll.
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