Orchids comprise one of the most spectacular groups of flowering plants but they are rather a mean bunch: a large number of species go to some length to attract pollinators but produce no nectar or other reward for their visit. This is a highly unusual strategy amongst flowering plants. So how do such ‘rewardless’ species manage to propagate themselves while surrounding plants must reward their...

Variation in plant and floral size can have conflicting effects on pollination and fruit production in flowering plants. This research examines the contributions of plant height, flower size and pollinator visitation to reproductive success in four populations of Iris tuberosa. The plants were pollinated exclusively by hymenopteran species, primarily during sunny days. Pollination supplementati...

Seedlings of tomato fruit ripening mutants were screened for their ability to respond to ethylene. Ethylene induced the triple response in etiolated hypocotyls of all tomato ripening mutants tested except for one, Never ripe (Nr). Our results indicated that the lack of ripening in this mutant is caused by ethylene insensitivity. Segregation analysis indicated that Nr-associated ethylene insensi...

tuberose is one of the most important floral crops in iran. long spikes of fragrant flowers make it excellent for cut flower. due to the beauty and sweet fragrance of flowers, it used in all seasons for flower arrangements. production of high quality flowers and vase life extension is important for competition in world markets. for this reason this research was conducted on polianthes tuberosa ...

U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP)-70K (U1-70K), a U1 snRNP-specific protein, is involved in the early stages of spliceosome formation. In non-plant systems, it is involved in constitutive and alternative splicing. It has been shown that U1snRNP is dispensable for in vitro splicing of some animal pre-mRNAs, and inactivation of U1-70K in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is not lethal. As...

Variation in nectar chemistry among plants, flowers, or individual nectaries of a given species has been only rarely explored, yet it is an essential aspect to our understanding of how pollinator-mediated selection might act on nectar traits. This paper describes variation in nectar sugar composition in a population of the perennial herb Helleborus foetidus (Ranunculaceae) and dissects it into ...

It has been reported that ethylene production by cucumber plants is strongly related to the sex expression of their flowers. It has also been shown that both CS-ACS2 gene expression and ethylene evolution are much greater in gynoecious cucumber plants than monoecious ones. To investigate the action mechanism of ethylene in the induction of femaleness of cucumber flowers, we isolated three ethyl...