Anthocyanins, Chalcones, Aurones, Flavones and Related Water-Soluble Plant Pigments

Abstract

During the past two decades many fundamental advances have been made in methods for the detection, separation, recognition and structure determination of the water-soluble plant pigments. While relatively few fundamental changes have been introduced into the procedures for the large-scale isolation of flavonoid substances, the development of chromatographic and partition technics, and the increasing application of absorption spectrometry made possible by advancements in instrumentation, have made available powerful tools for the detailed examination of the complex mixtures of pigments that most plant tissues contain. The first systematic scheme developed for the characterization of one class of the water-soluble pigments was that elaborated by Robinson and Robinson (1931) for the rapid identification of the anthocyanins. This procedure made possible the characterization of the anthocyanin pigments of leaves and blossoms with the use of crude extracts of the plant material, and afforded a reliable means for the examination of a large number of plant specimens with the use of small amounts of material. Application of these methods to genetically-analyzed flower populations by Scott-Moncrieff (1939) and her colleagues made possible the important studies which represent the first concerted attack on the fundamental problems of biochemical genetics. Since the interruption of the genetical studies at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, a number of advances have been made that suggest the desirability of renewing and extending investigations along chemical-genetical lines.