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THE‐ TOXIC ACTION OF COAL GAS UPON PLANTS
Author(s) -
WOFFENDEN LETTICE M.,
PRIESTLEY J. H.
Publication year - 1924
Publication title -
annals of applied biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1744-7348
pISSN - 0003-4746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7348.1924.tb05692.x
Subject(s) - meristem , biology , coal , botany , endodermis , chemistry , organic chemistry , shoot
Summary.1 Further experiments upon the effect upon the plant of atmospheres contaminated with coal gas, lend support to the view that this effect is mainly produced as a result of the mobility of unsaturated fatty substances in the plant walls in the presence of unsaturated gaseous hydrocarbons present in the coal gas. 2 Unsaturated fatty acids appear to be normal constituents of the meristem wall and in the presence of these unsaturated gaseous hydrocarbons they migrate towards the plant surface leaving the meristem walls more permeable. As a result, premature vacuolation and extension of the cells of the meristem take place. A failure of the primary endodermis in root and etiolated stem, owing to the absence of the fat impregnated Casparian strip, is frequently associated with this greater mobility of the unsaturated fatty acids. The normal green stem is indifferent to traces of coal gas because the fatty substances leave the meristem walls and accumulate in the surface wall at a very early stage of development. 3 The development of the cork phellogen in the stem of Sambucus is briefly traced, and the effect of coal gas upon this stem at different developmental stages is described. 4 The effects described are best interpreted on the assumption that at a very early stage of their formation, the cork cells cut off from the phellogen are very susceptible to the presence of coal gas. At this stage these cells become distended with water, and the fatty acids diffusing from the protoplast, fail to remain in and on the walls so that no suberin lamella is formed. 5 These results are entirely in accordance with the effects of coal gas upon the differentiating cells of the apical meristem cf etiolated stem or root and can be explained by the greater mobility of unsaturated fatty acids in the presence of the gaseous unsaturated hydrocarbons present in the coal gas. 6 The experimental results are also in accord with those ot earlier investigators. They suggest that coal gas will not be toxic to cork enveloped tissues except in the case of leakage from buried gas mains around the root systems of the plant; entry of pathogenic organisms will then be facilitated by che proliferated, unsuberised tissue formed from the cork phellogen. 7 The proliferated tissue formed from the cork phellogen in these experiments with coal gas appears to be suggestive in connection with the aerenchyma formed upon plant surfaces immersed in stagnant water.