Abstract: With wheat leaves as material, the changes of superoxide dismutase (SOD), lipid peroxi-dation and membrane permeability during leaf senescence in light or dark, and treated withphytohormones (KT or ABA) have been studied. The changes of chlorophyll content, lipidperoxidation and fine structure of spinach chloroplasts senescing in light or dark have alsobeen studied. When leaves senesce in light, the activity of SOD increased at first then decreased. The increase of SOD activity was able to result from the synthesis of new protein. Lightwas found to delay the leaf senescence obviously but also accelerate leaf senescence by causinglipid peroxidation when prolonged the illumination time. The delay or acceleration of leafsenescence by exogenous hormones were observed, it may be due to the control of lipid peroxi-dation by adjusting the activity of SOD. O2-participated the chlorophyll decomposition andlipid peroxidation during chloroplasts senesce in light. A favourable role of light in mainta-lng the fine structure of isolated chloroplasts was clear.

Key words: Leaf senescence, Superoxide dismutase, Lipid peroxidation, KT and ABA, Chloroplast structure