Question

Take a clean glass slide and put few drops of water on it. Now place a complete Rheo leaf on water droplets and examine the cells of leaf under the high power of compound microscope. Put a few drops of concentrated salt/sugar solution on the mounted Rheo leaf on the glass slide. Wait for few minutes and again observe the leaf under the high power of microscope.
What will be your observation after few minutes?

• A. Cell contents are separated from the cell wall.
• B. Cytoplasm along with plasma membrane has come to lie on one side of cell wall.
• C. A clear space is seen between the cell wall and protoplast of the cells
• D. All of these

Answer 1

The correct option is D All of these

Shrinkage of the protoplast of a plant cell from its cell wall under the influence of a hypertonic solution is called plasmolysis.

If we put a Rheo leaf in a concentrated salt/ sugar solution, it will cause exosmosis or withdrawal of water from cytoplasm and then the central vacuole of cell.

As a result, the size of cytoplasm as well as central vacuole decreases and hence protoplast reduces. The plasma membrane gets withdrawn from the cell wall and a clear space is seen between the cell wall and protoplast of the cells.

Therefore, the correct answer is "option D"