Is starch in the leaves of some plants?

Question

Is starch in the leaves of some plants?

Answer 1

Starch is usually stored in the stem of the plant. I've never heard of it being in the leaves, but there might be some obscure example that proves me wrong.

Answer 2

The starch, present in leaves as a product of photosynthesis,  is named autochthonic ( originating or formed in the place where found ) starch. The leaves use it as "short time energy". It is needed f.e.to completely sustain all plant organs over night.

More details how to detect it etc:

http://www.plantscafe.net/modules/b_book...

http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/111/3/679...

"Cool Night Temperatures Alter Leaf Starch"

http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content...

Answer 3

Starch is found in almost every typical meal from the Northern Hemisphere. For a truly useful nutrient it is critical that there be some understanding of what starch is and how preparation processes will influence it.

Starch is a polysaccharide (meaning "many sugars") made up of glucose units linked together to form long chains. The number of glucose molecules joined in a single starch molecule varies from five hundred to several hundred thousand, depending on the type of starch. Starch is the storage form of energy for plants, just as glycogen is the storage form of energy for animals. The plant directs the starch molecules to the amyloplasts, where they are deposited to form granules. Thus, both in plants and in the extracted concentrate, starch exists as granules varying in diameter from 2 to 130 microns. The size and shape of the granule is characteristic of the plant from which it came and serves as a way of identifying the source of a particular starch.

The structure of the granule of grain is crystalline with the starch molecules orienting in such a way as to form radially oriented crystals. This crystalline arrangement is what gives rise to the phenomenon of birefringence. When a beam of polarized light is directed through a starch granule, the granule is divided by dark lines into four wedge-shaped sections. This cross-hatching or cross is characteristic of spherocrystalline structures.