Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and its wild progenitor, teosinte (Z. mays ssp. parviglumis) differ dramatically in inflorescence and plant architecture despite the fact that their evolutionary divergence occurred within the past 10,000 years or less. To elucidate the genetic control of the morphological differences between maize and teosinte, my colleague and I employed quantitative trait locus map...

Objective: To explore the effect of altitude and latitude on breeding of Amomum tsaoko Crevost et Lemaire, a flexistylous ginger, which fruit is used as common materia medica and a food condiment. Methods: The 7 populations were selected randomly from the three floristic zones of Yunnan. Adult plants and infructescences were chosen randomly to gain flower number and fructification percentage pe...

Flowering plants go through several phases between regular stem growth and the actual production of flower parts. The stepwise conversion of vegetative into inflorescence and floral meristems is usually unidirectional, but under certain environmental or genetic conditions, meristems can revert to an earlier developmental identity. Vegetative meristems are typically indeterminate, producing orga...

A significant feature of plant cells is the extensive motility of organelles and the cytosol, which was originally defined as cytoplasmic streaming. We suggested previously that a three-way interaction between plant-specific motor proteins myosin XIs, actin filaments, and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) was responsible for cytoplasmic streaming. (1) Currently, however, there are no reports of mo...

Mutations in EMBRYONIC FLOWER (EMF) genes EMF1 and EMF2 abolish rosette development, and the mutants produce either a much reduced inflorescence or a transformed flower. These mutant characteristics suggest a repressive effect of EMF activities on reproductive development. To investigate the role of EMF genes in regulating reproductive development, we studied the relationship between EMF genes ...

Leaves are thought to be the primary carbon source for reproduction in plants, so a positive relationship between vegetative size and reproductive output is expected, establishing a trade-off between time to reproduction and reproductive output. A common response to higher temperatures due to climate changes is the induction of earlier transition into reproduction. Thus, in annual plants, earli...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Resource allocation to flowers, fruits and seeds can vary greatly within an inflorescence. For example, distal fruits are often smaller and produce fewer and smaller fruits and seeds than more basal fruits. To assess the causes and functional significance of intra-inflorescence variation, pollen and resources were manipulated to test whether such patterns could be altered wi...

FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) encodes a systemic signal communicating the perception of long day photoperiod from leaves to the shoot apex to induce the floral transition. Transient expression of FT in the phloem companion cells of rosette leaves for one to several days was previously shown to be sufficient to commit plants to flowering. Here we show that partial commitment results in pleiotropic infl...