HYDRATION STUDIES IN FRESH AND DRIED RED CLOVER ROOTS AND SHOOTS WITH REFERENCE TO PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF TISSUE

Abstract

It is well known that plant tissues which have been thoroughly dried readily absorb atmospheric moisture. This process has been termed rehydration. In recent years it has been established that living plant tissues bind a portion of the water associated with their cell constituents. It is considered that this bound water possesses properties differing from those of the remaining water in the cells. It has been proposed that this water-binding capacity of plant tissues is of importance in such psysiological phenomena as cold resistance, drought hardiness, and growth. The writers (4, 5) have reported that the unfreezable or bound water content of the tissues effectually differentiated several varieties of red clover which exhibited varying degrees of cold hardiness. The purpose of the present investigation was to compare the unfreezable water content of the fresh clover roots and shoots with the rehydration of the dry tissue. Detailed analyses were performed on the tissue thereby permitting a study of the correlation existing between composition of the tissue and its unfreezable water content of the fresh tissue or rehydration capacity of the dried tissue.