Chlorophyll does not reflect green light - how to correct a misconception

Plant leaves are green because they contain the green photosynthetic pigments, chlorophylls a and b. Popular science literature, and sometimes even textbooks, state that the greenness is caused by reflection of green light by chlorophyll. In the present study, we compared the reflectance spectra of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biological education Vol. 56; no. 5; pp. 552 - 559
Main Authors: Virtanen, Olli, Constantinidou, Emanuella, Tyystjärvi, Esa
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Routledge 20.10.2022
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:
absorbance
Chlorophyll
Color
Elementary Secondary Education
green
green leaves
Light
Misconceptions
Optics
Plants (Botany)
reflectance
Science Instruction
Scientific Concepts
visible light
ISSN:0021-9266, 2157-6009
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Plant leaves are green because they contain the green photosynthetic pigments, chlorophylls a and b. Popular science literature, and sometimes even textbooks, state that the greenness is caused by reflection of green light by chlorophyll. In the present study, we compared the reflectance spectra of green leaves to yellow or white leaves of the same species. Chlorophyll-deficient leaves reflected green light more efficiently than green leaves of the same species, which conclusively refutes the misconception. The data show that the green colour of leaves is caused by preferential absorption of blue and red light by chlorophyll, not by reflection of green light by chlorophyll. The data suggest that the cellulose of the cell walls is the main component that diffusely reflects visible light within plant leaves.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0021-9266
2157-6009
DOI:10.1080/00219266.2020.1858930