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In order to produce glucose, plants need to capture sufficient light energy. Many modern plants have evolved leaves specialized for light acquisition. Leaves can be only millimeters in width or tens of meters wide, depending on the environment. Due to competition for sunlight, evolution has driven the evolution of increasingly larger leaves and taller plants, to avoid shading by their neighbors with contaminant elaboration of root architecture and mechanisms to transport water and nutrients.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 25, 2026

Measuring Spatially- and Directionally-varying Light Scattering from Biological Material

Measuring Spatially- and Directionally-varying Light Scattering from Biological Material

Published on: May 20, 2013

Certain biominerals in leaves function as light scatterers.

Assaf Gal¹, Vlad Brumfeld, Steve Weiner

¹Dept of Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

|February 1, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Plant leaf minerals like cystoliths and calcium oxalate druses scatter light, improving photosynthesis. These light-scattering bodies redistribute light from upper to lower leaf tissues, enhancing overall light utilization efficiency.

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Using Changes in Leaf Transmission to Investigate Chloroplast Movement in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Area of Science:

Plant anatomy and physiology
Biophotonics
Mineralized plant structures

Background:

Cystoliths, amorphous calcium carbonate bodies, are found in plant leaf epidermis.
They protrude into the mesophyll, creating a steep light gradient due to photosynthetic pigments.
High light in the outer mesophyll leads to light saturation, limiting photosynthetic efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the optical function of cystoliths in plant leaves.
To determine how light scattering by cystoliths affects light distribution within the mesophyll.
To assess the role of mineral inclusions in optimizing leaf photosynthesis.

Main Methods:

Micro-scale modulated fluorometry to measure light distribution.
MicroCT and electron microscopy for anatomical and spatial analysis.
Analysis of light scattering properties of mineral inclusions.

Main Results:

Cystoliths effectively scatter light, redistributing it from light-saturated upper mesophyll to light-deprived lower tissues.
The presence of cystoliths reduces the steepness of the light gradient within the leaf.
Calcium oxalate druses exhibit similar light-scattering functions as cystoliths.
Spatial distribution of minerals is consistent with their proposed optical function.

Conclusions:

Plant leaf minerals, including cystoliths and druses, play a crucial role in optimizing light capture and utilization.
Light scattering by these mineral bodies enhances photosynthetic efficiency by evening out light distribution.
This mechanism allows plants to adapt to varying light conditions and maximize energy conversion.