Question
Chlorophyll makes a plant leaf green. (a) At the end of the summer.the normal plants had grown more than those with variegated I leaves. All the plants had been grown in the same conditions. (i) Explain why plants with normal leaves grow more than plants with variegated leaves. __
Answer
4.5
(221 Votes)
Theo
Master · Tutor for 5 years
Answer
The plant with normal leaves grows more than the plants with variegated leaves as the normal plant leaves contain more chlorophyll. More chlorophyll allows the plant to absorb more sunlight and undergoing photosynthesis and converting it to nutrients at a fuller and faster rate than plants with variegated leaves that cant maximally use the sunlight for photosynthesis across all their leaves.
Explanation
Firstly, we need to understand what the term variegated leaves means in this context. Variegated leaves are leaves that have white or pale parts, without the green pigment chlorophyll. These paler parts contain cells that do not possess chlorophyll, meaning they can't carry out photosynthesis as efficiently as the cells that do have chlorophyll. Photosynthesis is a vital process that plants use to produce food in the form of glucose from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water. The green color in regular plant leaves is due to the amount of chlorophyll present in leaf cells, which captures sunlight and uses it as the energy needed to perform photosynthesis. Given that information, normal plants (leaves full of chlorophyll) are able to maximize their potential for photosynthesis due to their green pigment, allowing them to obtain a greater amount of nutrients from the sun than variegated leaves can. In contrast, plants with variegated leaves have parts of the leaves that cannot capture sunlight and convert it into nutrients additionally productive. This will likely result in slightly slower growth in comparison to plants that can fully use sunlight across all their leaves.Therefore, it seems probable accept that the existence of more chlorophyll in the standard plant leaves would allow for a higher rate of photosynthesis, leading to more successful growth in comparison to the variegated-leaves plants grown inside the same conditions.