ABSTRACT
As we interact with plants on a daily basis, perhaps enjoying our backyard or a landscaped park, hiking across an alpine meadow, or harvesting the fruits of agricultural labor, we might ask ourselves: why does a daffodil flower bloom in the spring, and a dahlia in late summer? Why are the leaves on a tobacco plant undivided (whole), while those on the related solanaceous species, tomato, are divided (compound)? What prevents the premature germination of corn kernels before they have been shed by the mother plant? These are just a few examples of the questions that have long inspired and fascinated plant developmental biologists. Each of them can be boiled down to one or more underlying conceptual events. For example, the induction of flowering by photoperiod and the induction of germination by stratification are both examples of developmental phase transitions. This and other concepts in plant development are summarized in Table 10.1.
