Plant Pigments

Plant Pigments
As we all know, Plants have pigments in them. However, many people do not know what these pigments are, their purpose, and even their names. Firstly, I would start my point of by saying that there are 3 main types of pigments in a plant, Chlorophylls, Carotenoids and Phycobilins.

Chlorophylls
Chlorophyll is a green pigment that conhtains a ring molecule known as the porphyrin ring. This is the sole molecule that allows the Chlorophyll pigment to trap sunlight. As the molecule allows electrons to move freely within it, it can either lose or gain electrons easily, and hence it is able to gain the energized electrons from the sun's rays and use it for photosynthesis.

Chlorophyll is often found in leaves, stems and even sepals of the flower. It is stored in the chloroplast of the cell. In total, there are three types of chlorophylls: Chlorophyll "a", Chlorophyll "b" and Chlorophyll "c". All plants that photosynthesize have Chlorophyll "a". Chlorophyll "b" is found only in green algae and in plants. Chlorophyll "c" is found in photosynthetic kind of organisms in aquatic organisms.

Carotenoids
Carotenoid is a red, orange or yellow pigment. It includes the familiar compound carotene, which gives carrots their colour. Carotenoid contains two six-carbon rings connected by a chain of carbon atoms. Hence, they do not dissolve in water and they must be attached to membranes. Carotenoids only can assist in photosynthesis as they can only pass the energy from the trapped sunlight to the chlorophyll pigments. There are 2 types of Carotenoids: Carotenes and Xanthophylls.

Phycobilins
Phycobilins are soluble in water. This special pigment is only found in the Rhodophyta or single cell bacteria, Cyanobacteria. There are 2 types of this pigment: phycocyanin, a bluish pigment found in Cyanobacteria and phycoerythrin, a reddish pigment found in Rhodophyta. Phycobilins are useful for soaking up light energy and even fluoresce at a particular wavelength. This makes it useful for research.

Credits: http://www.odec.ca/projects/2003/thoga3n/public_html/plantpig.html#Phycobilins
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss3/pigments.html