BACKGROUND AND AIMS Flowers are relatively invariant organs within species, but quantitative variation often exists among conspecifics. These variations represent the raw material that natural selection can magnify, eventually resulting in morphological divergence and diversification. This paper investigates floral variability in Rosmarinus officinalis, a Mediterranean shrub. METHODS Nine pop...

• Plants are integral parts of nature and constitute the major portion of animals’ ration in the form of green and dry fodders. • Some plants are very obnoxious and produce toxicity amongst livestock. Lantana is one of them. • There are about 40 species of the genus Lantana. The important species include L. camara, L. indica, L. crenulata and L. trifolia. • Amongst various species L. camara var...

Saintpaulia ionantha is propagated by adventitious buds in horticulture, and periclinal chimeral cultivars are usually difficult to propagate. However, some periclinal chimeral cultivars can be propagated with adventitious buds, and the mechanism of which has been unknown. Striped flower cultivars "Kaname," "Concord," and "Monique" were used to investigate what causes flower color separation in...

Photoperiod is one of the major environmental factors determining time to flower initiation and first flower appearance in plants. In chickpea, photoperiod sensitivity, expressed as delayed to flower under short days (SD) as compared to long days (LD), may change with the growth stage of the crop. Photoperiod-sensitive and -insensitive phases were identified by experiments in which individual p...

Intensified ultraviolet-B radiation or UV-B (wavelengths between 280 and 320 nm) can delay flowering and diminish lifetime flower production in a few plants. Here we studied the effects of enhanced UV-B on floral traits crucial to pollination and pollinator reproduction. We observed simultaneous flowering responses of a new crop plant, Limnanthes alba (Limnathaceae), and a wildflower, Phacelia ...

the effects of sodium chloride (nacl) salinity (control; canal water with 0.4 ds m-1), 2.5 dsm-1, 5.0 ds m-1, 7.5 ds m-1 and 10.0 ds m-1, respectively) developed after 6 weeks of pruning (beginning of study) on plant growth, flowering and quality of three cut rose (rosa hybrida l.) cultivars viz. ‘kardinal’, ‘angelique’ and ‘gold medal’ were studied to achieve better management, quality product...

Late-flowering ecotypes and mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana and the related crucifer Thlaspi arvense flower early after cold treatment (vernalization). Treatment with the DNA demethylating agent 5-azacytidine induced nonvernalized plants to flower significantly earlier than untreated controls. Cytidine at similar concentrations had no effect on time to flower. In contrast, late-flowering mutant...

In recent years, herbaceous flowering potted plants have widely been used to be planted in garden area but these species might be also used as interior plants. Post production performance of flowering potted plants under interior conditions has become a research area of great interest. The aim of this work was to evaluate whether Salvia splendens may have a potential use as short-term colour so...

Various biotic and abiotic factors are known to exert selection pressures on floral traits, but the influence of ultraviolet-B (UV-B) light on the evolution of flower structure remains relatively unexplored. We have examined the effectiveness of flower structure in blocking radiation and the effects of UV-B on pollen viability in 42 species of alpine plants in the Hengduan Mountains, China. Flo...

Global optimization methods play an important role to solve many real-world problems. Flower pollination algorithm (FP) is a new nature-inspired algorithm, based on the characteristics of flowering plants. In this paper, a new hybrid optimization method called hybrid flower pollination algorithm (FPPSO) is proposed. The method combines the standard flower pollination algorithm (FP) with the par...