Abstract
PLANTS are permeated by the same gases that make up the atmosphere surrounding them: oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Nitrogen in the form of a gas is neither used nor generated by any part of plants, unless we except the tubercles of certain roots, and so it occurs in about the same percentage inside the plant as outside of it. On the other hand, both oxygen and carbon dioxide enter into combination with, and are liberated from, the plant tissues in varying amounts at different times. The percentage of these two gases in the cavities of the plant vary through a considerable range. In a series of determinations made by Lawes, Gilbert, and Pugh, in England, the oxygen ranged from 3 to 10 per cent., and the carbon dioxide from 14 to 21 per cent. in plants which had been for some time in the dark, while plants which had been standing in sunlight reversed these figures, and gave 24 to 27 per cent. of oxygen and 3 to 6 per cent. of carbon dioxide. The two gases, therefore, bear a somewhat reciprocal relation, their sum usually being about 25 to 30 per cent. of the total gas in the plant.
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ARTHUR, J. Gases in Living Plants1. Nature 47, 427–428 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/047427a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047427a0