Gymnosperm taxa are incredibly diverse in many traits, including with evergreen or deciduous leaves; broad, compound, needle-like scale-like trees, shrubs, and lianas; seed cones that range from fleshy to woody. Although less appreciated, xylem conduits also structure among extant gymnosperm taxa. Within the of gymnosperms, axial transport occurs predominantly via tracheids, although 10–40% tax...

There has been considerable interest of late in the transition of seemingly vegetative shoots of angiosperms into "reproductive" axes with their appendages. The flowering shoot formed in this manner is assumed to be a reflection of a change or changes which must have taken place in the activity of the apical meristem. It is well known for certain angiosperms that a proper period of photoinducti...

Somatic embryogenesis of Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) is a versatile model system to study molecular mechanisms regulating embryo development because it proceeds through defined developmental stages corresponding to specific culture treatments. Normal embryonic development involves early differentiation of proembryogenic masses (PEMs) into somatic embryos, followed by early and late embryogen...

In many plants belonging to angiosperms and gymnosperms the accumulation in leaves of long chain polyprenols and polyprenyl esters during growth in natural habitats depends on the light intensity. The amount of polyprenols in leaves is also positively correlated with the thickness of the leaf blade (SLA, specific leaf area). The polyprenol content of leaves shows seasonal changes with a maximum...

All available publications providing descriptions of ectomycorrhizas (ECM) were reviewed in order to build a database containing details on fungus forming the ECM, host tree, country where the material for description was collected, and habitat of the ECM. Other secondary data were also recorded. In all 1244 descriptions of ECM published since 1961 in 479 papers were reviewed. The number of dif...

Gregor Kozlowski,* Markus Stoffel, Sébastien Bétrisey, Léonard Cardinaux and Matteo Mota 1 Natural History Museum Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 6, CH-1700, Fribourg, Switzerland 2 Department of Biology and Botanic Garden, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 10, CH-1700, Fribourg, Switzerland 3 Dendrolab.ch, Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 1+ 3, CH-3012, Bern...