Petal development and senescence entails a normally irreversible process. It starts with petal expansion and pigment production, and ends with nutrient remobilization and ultimately cell death. In many species this is accompanied by petal abscission. Post-harvest stress is an important factor in limiting petal longevity in cut flowers and accelerates some of the processes of senescence such as ...

Flowers are prized as objects of great beauty and diversity, and are commercially valuable (~US$4.5 billion in international trade yearly) and highly perishable. Biologically, flower petals have an important role in the lifecycle of plants, as they protect immature reproductive structures, then provide the attraction and accessibility needed for pollination to occur. Flower petal cell wall cons...

Most important breeding goals in ornamental crops are plant appearance and flower characteristics where selection is visually performed on direct offspring of crossings. We developed an image analysis toolbox for the acquisition of flower and petal images from cultivated carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) that was validated by a detailed analysis of flower and petal size and shape in 78 comme...

The Arabidopsis SUPERMAN (SUP) gene encodes a C2H2 type zinc finger protein that is required for maintaining the boundaries between stamens and carpels, and for regulating development of ovule outer integument. Orthologs of SUP have been characterized in bisexual flowers as well as dioecious species, but it remains elusive in monoecious plants with unisexual flowers on the same individual. Here...

The molecular conformation of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaM kinase II) from the rat forebrain and cerebellum was studied by means of EM using a quick-freezing technique. Each molecule appeared to be composed of two kinds of particles, with one larger central particle and smaller peripheral particles and had shapes resembling that of a flower with 8 or 10 "petals". A favorable...

The role of petal spurs and specialized pollinator interactions has been studied since Darwin. Aquilegia petal spurs exhibit striking size and shape diversity, correlated with specialized pollinators ranging from bees to hawkmoths in a textbook example of adaptive radiation. Despite the evolutionary significance of spur length, remarkably little is known about Aquilegia spur morphogenesis and i...

The petal epidermis acts not only as a barrier to the outside world but also as a point of interaction between the flower and potential pollinators. The presence of conical petal epidermal cells has previously been shown to influence the attractiveness of the flower to pollinating insects. Using Antirrhinum isogenic lines differing only in the presence of a single epidermal structure, conical c...

Four B-class MADS box genes specify petal and stamen organ identities in tomato. Several homeotic mutants affected in petal and stamen development were described in this model species, although the causal mutations have not been identified for most of them. In this study we characterized a strong stamenless mutant in the tomato Primabel cultivar (sl-Pr), which exhibited homeotic conversion of p...

The apetalous trait of rapeseed (Brassica napus, AACC, 2n = 38) is important for breeding an ideal high-yield rapeseed with superior klendusity to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Currently, the molecular mechanism underlying the apetalous trait of rapeseed is unclear. In this study, 14 petal regulators genes were chosen as target genes (TGs), and the expression patterns of the 14 TGs in the AH popula...