Slurping Sugars The main reason for pruning plants is to stimulate the growth of axillary buds, a.k.a., lateral buds. (Please see previous post.) But why is the growth of axillary buds stimulated by cutting off the terminal (or apical) bud? The most common explanation of this is the long-known, and…
Where Does The Daffodil Flower’s “Trumpet” Come From? An answer to this question can be found in a 2013 report published in The Plant Journal (please see Ref. 1 below). The full text of this article is now available online (thanks to the Wiley Online Library), and I’ve read it…
The disclaimer: This is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the recent literature regarding abscission in plants. Instead, think of this as a selection of “recent highlights” (my opinion) in the study of abscission. Let’s focus on three steps of abscission: (1) the development of the abscission zone…
Since the daffodils are out in full force here in the upper left-hand corner of the U.S., I decided to revisit this post from 2013 and revise it a bit. Hope you enjoy it (again?)…. Doesn’t the Scientific Study of Flower Development Ruin the Aesthetic Beauty of Flowers? Here’s the…
Plants on Stilts Because plants are “rooted” to the place where they germinate, they don’t move. Indeed, it’s become almost a cliche to describe plants as displaying a “sessile life-style”, especially when contrasting them to animals. But are all plants necessarily sessile organisms, never moving from the spot where they…
Seeking The Light Being light-powered lifeforms, most green plants seek out the sunlight and avoid the shade. But being sessile organisms, plants can not uproot themselves and mosey from the shade into the sun. Because they are stuck in the same spot all of their lives, plants have apparently evolved…
How do some plants arrange their leaves in a whorl (e.g., see photo left) in order maximize sunlight exposure, and, thus, photosynthesis? And how is it that plants consume stored energy in the form of starch at just the right rate so as to last them through the night? To…
The Ups and Downs of Plant Growth What environmental factors have the most important effects on plant development? When I posed this question to students in class (back in the day when I was boring college undergraduates), it typically took quite a while before someone finally said “Gravity!”. (I usually…
The Sperm & Egg Tango In a paper published in the 23 November 2012 issue of Science magazine (Ref 1 below), Dr. Stephanie Sprunck and Prof. Dr. Thomas Dresselhaus and colleagues report a major finding regarding the cellular nature of sexual reproduction in plants. Specifically, they have been studying gamete…
The Hourglass Model It’s easy to see how plants and animals differ in many, many ways at the whole-organism level. (see previous posts here and here, for example.) But at the cellular level, plants and animals are quite similar (mainly because they share a common eukaryotic cell ancestor). New scientific…