Two new species of Alcea L. (Malvaceae)in Iran, namely, A. iranshahrii from Fars Province and A. mazandaranica from Mazandaran Province are described. Their descriptions and taxonomic relationships are also given. In addition, seed coat microsculpturing is examined using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM). The seed coat patterns observed are fairly uniformed among the genus. It w...

In Arabidopsis, rapid expansion of the coenocytic endosperm after fertilisation has been proposed to drive early seed growth, which is in turn constrained by the seed coat. This hypothesis implies physical heterogeneity between the endosperm and seed coat compartments during early seed development, which to date has not been demonstrated. Here, we combine tissue indentation with modelling to sh...

The morphology of 11 species of the genus Vicia from Iran was studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The main pattern in seed coat sculpturing in the species was papillose, but the size and the number of side ribs in papillae and the density of papillae, were different in various species. Four morphological characters of seeds: relative hilum length and shape, relative position of th...

Seed development is dependent on nutrients, such as a source of carbon, supplied by the parent plant. It remains largely unknown how these nutrients are distributed to zygotic and maternal tissues to coordinate storage of reserve compounds and development of protective tissues like seed coat. Here we show that phosphorylation of TRANSPARENT TESTA GLABRA1 (TTG1) is regulated by SHAGGY-like kinas...

Chalcone synthase (CHS) is required for the biosynthesis of anthocyanin pigments that give color to various plant tissues, such as the flower and seed coat. The silencing of CHS genes produces a highly visible phenotype, lack of color in the seed coat or flower, that facilitated the discovery of gene silencing in eukaryotes (Napoli et al., 1990) and continues to provide a useful system for inve...

In many forage legumes, hard seed coat is the main problem impeding thegermination by preventing water and gases transport in seed. We evaluated theeffects of mechanical scarification, chilling, different seedbeds (peat and sand) andtheir combination on the germination ratio and time of 9 naturally grown legumespecies belonging Lathyrus and Vicia genus. Control seeds showed very lowgermination ...

This prospective study involved supplementing 18 normal dogs with flax seed (FLX) and sunflower seed (SUN) and evaluating their effects on skin and hair coat condition scores and serum polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) concentrations. Skin and hair coat were evaluated in a double-blinded fashion using a numeric scoring system and serum PUFA concentrations were determined. Our hypothesis was th...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Imbibition of Japanese soybean (Glycine max) cultivars was studied using micro-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in order to elucidate the mechanism of soaking injury and the protective role of the seed coat. METHODS Time-lapse images during water uptake were acquired by the single-point imaging (SPI) method at 15-min intervals, for 20 h in the dry seed with seed coat, and ...

The Arabidopsis thaliana MYB5 gene is expressed in trichomes and seeds, including the seed coat. Constitutive expression of MYB5 resulted in the formation of more small trichomes and ectopic trichomes and a reduction in total leaf trichome numbers and branching. A myb5 mutant displayed minimal changes in trichome morphology, while a myb23 mutant produced increased numbers of small trichomes and...

The Arabidopsis seed coat is composed of two layers of mucilage, a water-soluble non-adherent outer layer and an adherent inner layer. The non-adherent mucilage can easily be extracted by gentle shaking. However, adherent mucilage is extremely difficult to dissociate from the seed coat. Despite various treatments to extract the adherent mucilage, including EDTA, ammonium oxalate, dilute alkali ...