Plant anatomy, leaf to chloroplast. Animation showing successively magnified views of a plant, zooming in from the leaf to the chloroplast. The chloroplast is the organelle (cellular structure) involved in photosynthesis in green plants. The first diagram shows the stem and leaves of a green plant. One of the leaves is sectioned and the cross-section of the leaf blade is shown at lower right before becoming the main view. A magnified view of the cellular structure in cross-section then appears at lower right and becomes the main view. The labels show the upper epidermis, xylem and phloem tubes, air spaces for carbon dioxide diffusion, and the palisade cells (magnified view at left). The main view of the palisade cell shows the cell well, cytoplasm, nucleus, a vacuole, and a chloroplast (magnified view at right). The final part of the animation shows the internal structure of the chloroplast. A chloroplast is around 5 micrometres long. For this animation without labels, see K004/3544. |