The use which a plant makes of the elements which come to it from the soil has been studied with great persistency and care by many plant physiologists and chemists. Many of the reactions which take place in a plant cell are extremely complicated, and the relation of the different chemical elements to these is not easily ascertained. It is probable that the same element may play a somewhat different rôle in different species of plants, in different organs of the same plant, or at different stages of the plant's development. But the usual and most important offices of each element are now fairly well understood, and are briefly summarized in the following paragraphs. It should be understood that a thorough and detailed discussion of these matters, such as would be included in an advanced study of plant nutrition, would reveal other functions than those which are presented here and would require a more careful and more exact method of statement than is suitable here. However, the general principles of the utilization of soil elements by plants for their nutrition and growth may be fairly well understood from the following statements.
Role of Plant Food Elements in Plant Growth
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Carbohydrates are classed as open-chain compounds, that is, they may be regarded as derivatives of the aliphatic hydrocarbons. From the standpoint of the characteristic groups which they contain, they are aldehyde-alcohols. In common with many other polyatomic open-chain alcohols, they generally possess a characteristic sweet, or mildly sweetish, taste. In the case of the more complex and less soluble forms, this sweetish taste is scarcely noticeable and these compounds are commonly called the "starches," as contrasted with the more soluble and sweeter forms, known as "sugars."