Abstract
IN this laboratory, v. Hausen1 showed in her doctoral thesis that if the cotyledons of a pea plant are removed after a germination period of five to nine days, and the cotyledonless seedling is transferred into a sterile nutrient solution (the sterile culture system of Virtanen and v. Hausen2), it grows at first poorly and small chlorophyll-containing leaves are formed; but growth soon ceases. If crystalline ascorbic acid (30–40 mgm. per pea plant) was added to the nutrient solution (1 litre per pea plant) the plant grew until the flowering stage. Since the cotyledons of the pea at this stage of development contain more than 90 per cent of the vitamin C formed during germination, this experiment gave convincing proof for the conclusion3 drawn from the previous observations that vitamin C is a growth hormone of plants and indispensable for their life.
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References
v. Hausen, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fennicae, A, 46, No. 3 (1936).
Cf. Virtanen, v. Hausen and Karström, Biochem. Z., 258, 106 (1933).
Virtanen, v. Hausen and Saastamoinen, Biochem. Z., 267, 179 (1938).
Hausen, Saubert-v., Physiologia Plantarum, 1, 185 (1948).
Virtanen and Linkola, Nature. 158, 515 (1946).
Bonner, J., and Bonner, D., Proc. U.S. Nat. Acad. Sci., 24, 70 (1938).
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VIRTANEN, A., HAUSEN, SV. Role of Substances Formed during Germination in the Growth of Plants. Nature 163, 482–483 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163482a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163482a0
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