Bot. and Chem. (Also -phyle, -phylle, -phyl.) [a. F. chlorophylle, f. Gτ. χλωρός green + φύλλον leaf.]
1. The coloring matter of the leaves and other green parts of plants; found in the cells usually in the form of minute granules (chlorophyll-bodies or -corpuscles). Its chemical composition is uncertain. It forms the coloring matter also of various green water-animalcules, e.g., Hydra viridis.
[1818. Pelletier & Caventou, in Ann. de Chimie, IX. 195. La matière verte des végétaux…. Nous proposons de lui donner le nom de chlorophyle.]
1819. J. G. Children, Chem. Anal., 287. Chlorophyle is the green colouring matter of the leaves of plants.
1842. Gray, Struct. Bot., iii. § 4 (1880), 88. The characteristic contents of the cells of parenchyma are grains of chlorophyll … to which the green color of foliage is wholly owing.
1869. Ruskin, Q. of Air, § 57. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by ‘chlorophyll,’ which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called ‘green leaf,’ we should see more precisely how far we had got.
2. Comb., as chlorophyll-body, -cell, -corpuscle, -grain, -granule.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., II. xv. (1875), 335. The upper stratum … is composed of chlorophyll-cells.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., I. viii. 109. The colouring matter is limited to very minute granules lying in the colourless fluid contents. These are called the chlorophyll granules.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 45. These green-coloured portions of protoplasm … designated Chlorophyll-bodies.
1883. McNab, Bot. (Lond. Sc. Class-bks.), I. 17. The chlorophyll granule consists of two parts; a colourless solid portion derived from the protoplasm … and a green colouring matter, the chlorophyll, which is diffused through and colours the granule.
Hence Chlorophyllaceous a. [-ACEOUS], containing chlorophyll; Chlorophyllan, ‘a substance contained in chlorophyll; probably identical with what is called crystalline chlorophyll’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); Chlorophyllian a. (cf. F. chlorophyllien), of or pertaining to chlorophyll; Chlorophyllite, † a. Bot. = CHLOROPHYLL; b. Min. A greenish mineral, a variety of FAHLUNITE, an altered form of IOLITE; Chlorophyllous a., characterized by, or of the nature of chlorophyll.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 249. Forms belonging to the chlorophyllaceous series. Ibid., 758. The spectrum of Hoppe-Seyler’s chlorophyllan is the same as that of chlorophyll.
1880. Nature, XXI. 438. He did not succeed in demonstrating any chlorophyllian activity by the evolution of oxygen.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 425. The name chlorophyllite has been given by Pelletier and Caventou to the green colouring matter of the leaves of plants.
1841. Amer. Jrnl. Sc., XII. 358. The aqueous content of the chlorophyllite.
1863. Berkeley, Brit. Mosses, 311. Gloss., Chlorophyllous, spoken of the leaf-cells when they … contain a … mass, or little pellets of chlorophyll.
1871. Cooke, Fungi (1875), 117. No pure or chlorophyllous green.
