Morphological and nomenclatural investigations for two critical Mediterranean species of Elatine, i.e., E. macropoda gussonei, as well their correct distribution in Sicily, are discussed. These names lectotypified on herbarium specimens kept, respectively, at NAP FI. The morphological carried out both the types, several living dried material collected southern Lampedusa, Malta (loci classici in...

The Down Syndrome child in need of treatment is a medical ethics paradigm. In a film distributed by the Kennedy Foundation, for example, a Down Syndrome newborn is allowed to starve to death because his parents will not consent to surgery to correct a duodenal Artesia. And it is to detect and abort fetuses affected with Down Syndrome (trisomy 21) that amniocentesis is most often used. Down Synd...

Ethylene is required for climacteric fruit ripening. Inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis genes, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) synthase and ACC oxidase, prevents or delays ripening, but it is not known how these genes are modulated during normal development. LeHB-1, a previously uncharacterized tomato homeobox protein, was shown by gel retardation assay to interact with the promoter of...

MADS-domain proteins are important transcription factors involved in many biological processes of plants. In our study, a tomato MADS-box gene, SlFYFL, was isolated. SlFYFL is expressed in all tissues of tomato and significantly higher in mature leave, fruit of different stages, AZ (abscission zone) and sepal. Delayed leaf senescence and fruit ripening, increased storability and longer sepals w...

AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) is an important regulator of Arabidopsis flower development that has overlapping functions with the related AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE6 (AIL6) gene in floral organ initiation, identity specification, growth, and patterning. Two other AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE (AIL) genes, AIL5 and AIL7, are expressed in developing flowers in spatial domains that partly overlap with those of ANT. Here, it is s...

The unusual floral organs (ufo) mutant of Arabidopsis has flowers with variable homeotic organ transformations and inflorescence-like characteristics. To determine the relationship between UFO and previously characterized meristem and organ identity genes, we cloned UFO and determined its expression pattern. The UFO gene shows extensive homology with FIMBRIATA (FIM), a gene mediating between me...

Two MADS box genes, Lily MADS Box Gene 2 (LMADS2) and Eustoma grandiflorum MADS Box Gene 1 (EgMADS1), with an extensive similarity to the petunia (Petunia hybrida) FLORAL BINDING PROTEIN 7/11 and Arabidopsis AGL11, were characterized from the lily (Lilium longiflorum) and lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum). The expression of LMADS2 and EgMADS1 mRNA was restricted to the carpel and was absent in ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Pollinators together with other biotic and some abiotic factors can select for floral traits. However, variation in pollinator abundance over time and space can weaken such selection. In the present study, the variation in pollinator abundance over time and space was examined in populations of the Rocky Mountain columbine. The variation in three floral traits is described an...

flower morphology of ten fritillaria species of subgenera theresia and fritillaria growing wild in iran is studied using seventy morphological characters. qualitative and quantitative datasets separated taxa into subgenera, sectional and groups. three enigmatic species f. caucasica, f. zagrica (endemic to zagros mountains) and f. pinardii (recently reported from zagros mountains) appeared as cl...