Genetic and molecular studies have recently come to dominate botanical research at the expense of more traditional morphological approaches. This broad introduction to modern flower systematics demonstrates the great potential that floral morphology has to complement molecular data in phylogenetic and evolutionary investigations. Contributions from experts in floral morphology and evolution take the reader through examples of how flowers have diversified in a large variety of lineages of extant and fossil flowering plants. They explore angiosperm origins and the early evolution of flowers and analyse the significance of morphological characters for phylogenetic reconstructions on the tree of life. The importance of integrating morphology into modern botanical research is highlighted through case studies exploring specific plant groups where morphological investigations are having a major impact. Examples include the clarification of phylogenetic relationships and understanding the significance and evolution of specific floral characters, such as pollination mechanisms and stamen and carpel numbers.

The rapid population growth and the increase in the per capita income, especially in the group of emerging countries referred to as BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has created huge pressure for the expansion of the agricultural growing area and the crop yields to meet the rising demand. As a result, many areas that have been considered marginal for growing crops, due to their low fertility, drought, salinity, and many other abiotic stresses, have now been incorporated in the production system. Additionally, climate change has brought new challenges to agriculture to produce food, feed, fiber and biofuels. To cope with these new challenges, many plant breeding programs have reoriented their breeding scope to stress tolerance in the last years. The authors of this book have collected the most recent advances and discoveries applied to breeding for abiotic stresses in this book, starting with new physiological concepts and breeding methods, and moving on to discuss modern molecular biological approaches geared to the development of improved cultivars tolerant to most sorts of abiotic stress. Written in an easy to understand style, this book is an excellent reference work for students, scientists and farmers interested in learning how to breed for abiotic stresses scenarios, presenting the state-of-the-art in plant stresses and allowing the reader to develop a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms of tolerance to abiotic stresses and how to breed for them.

In this 1948 book, of which the scope and treatment are quite unique, Dr Bell gives an account of all cultivated farm plants in Britain at the time. In the first chapters he deals with general matters. Then, in the main part of the book he describes individually the different crop plants and their place in British agriculture, directing special attention to grasses and grassland. Crops are grouped according to their botanical relationship, and the botanical characters that give economic importance are described. The foundations of the book are, therefore, botanical; but the practical agricultural outcome is never lost sight of, nor are the wider implications, the importance of crops to the development of civilised life and modern standards of living. Crop improvement is discussed throughout the book, and a special chapter is devoted to seed stocks and improved varieties and strains. The book is illustrated with 36 photographs.

In this investigation of orchids, first published in 1862, Darwin expands on a point made in On the Origin of Species that he felt required further explanation, namely that he believes it to be 'a universal law of nature that organic beings require an occasional cross with another individual'. Darwin explains the method by which orchids are fertilised by insects, and argues that the intricate structure of their flowers evolved to favour cross pollination because of its advantages to the species. The book is written in Darwin's usual precise and elegant style, accessible despite its intricate detail. It includes a brief explanation of botanical terms and is illustrated with 34 woodcuts.

The ability of plants to exchange RNA molecules and transcription factors between cells and tissues is a relatively recent discovery. However, all areas of research such as plant development, metabolism, and plant pathogen interactions now realize the importance of this phenomenon. In this book, experts from the field of intercellular transport deal with various aspects on intercellular transport of viruses and plant endogenous macromolecules such as transcription factors, small silencing-induced and micro RNAs, and other RNAs and their function as signals. The aim of the book is to provide the basic information on the cell-to-cell transport mechanism and to give an overview of the current knowledge of this relatively new field of research. To quote the words of W.J. Lucas "...pioneering discoveries in this field of cell-to-cell and long-distance signaling should certainly entice talented young scholars to join this frontier area of plant biology" . He is certainly right as we got only a first glimpse on the cellular factors regulating intercellular transport and the functional diversity of the ever-increasing number of proteins and RNA molecules found to move between cells.

Originally published in 1990, this text brings together a detailed review by acknowledged authorities of grass reproductive biology. Grasses are our most important plants whether for agriculture or conservation. Essential to contemporary awareness of grasses is an understanding of their role in sustaining ecologically fragile environments, and the relative importance of annual and perennial reproduction is examined here with particular reference to indigenous dryland grasses marginal to major deserts. Molecular biology and tissue culture allow us to intervene in reproductive systems and the issues include a fundamental revision of the concept of double fertilisation grass pollen in relation to human allergy and the prospects for developing wheat male sterility. The book concludes with an overview to assess how far evolution of the grass is coming under human control.

Along the undisturbed shores, especially of the Mediterranean Sea and the European North Atlantic Ocean, is a quite widespread plant called Beta maritima by botanists, or more commonly sea beet. Nothing, for the inexperienced observer's eye, distinguishes it from surrounding wild vegetation. Despite its inconspicuous and nearly invisible flowers, the plant has had and will have invaluable economic and scientific importance. Indeed, according to Linne, it is considered "the progenitor of the beet crops possibly born from Beta maritima in some foreign country". Recent molecular research confirmed this lineage. Selection applied after domestication has created many cultivated types with different destinations. The wild plant always has been harvested and used both for food and as a medicinal herb. Sea beet crosses easily with the cultivated types. This facilitates the transmission of genetic traits lost during domestication, which selection processes aimed only at features immediately useful to farmers and consumers may have depleted. Indeed, as with several crop wild relatives, Beta maritima has been successfully used to improve cultivated beet's genetic resistances against many diseases and pests. In fact, sugar beet cultivation currently would be impossible in many countries without the recovery of traits preserved in the wild germplasm. Dr. Enrico Biancardi graduated from Bologna University. From 1977 until 2009, he was involved in sugar beet breeding activity by the Istituto Sperimentale per le Colture Industriali (ISCI) formerly Stazione Sperimentale di Bieticoltura (Rovigo, Italy), where he released rhizomania and cercospora resistant germplasm and collected seeds of Mediterranean sea beet populations as a genetic resource for breeding and ex situ conservation. Retired since 2009, he still collaborates with several working breeders, in particular, at the USDA Agricultural Research Stations, at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS), and at the Athens University (AUA). He has edited books, books chapters and authored more than 150 papers. Dr. Lee Panella is a plant breeder and geneticist with the USDA-ARS at Fort Collins, Colorado. He earned his B.S. in Crop and Soil Science from Michigan State University, an M.S. in Plant Breeding from Texas A&M University, and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California at Davis. His research focus is developing disease resistant germplasm using sugar beet wild relatives. He is chairman of the USDA-ARS Sugar Beet Crop Germplasm Committee and has collected and worked extensively with sea beet. Dr. Robert T. Lewellen was raised on a ranch in Eastern Oregon and obtained a B.S. in Crop Science from Oregon State University followed by a Ph.D. from Montana State University in Genetics. From 1966 to 2008 he was a research geneticist for the USDA-ARS at Salinas, California, where he studied the genetics of sugar beet and as a plant breeder, often used sea beet as a genetic source to produce many pest and disease resistant sugar beet germplasm and parental lines, while authoring more than 100 publications.

From their ability to use energy from sunlight to make their own food, to combating attacks from diseases and predators, plants have evolved an amazing range of life-sustaining strategies. Written with the non-specialist in mind, John King's lively natural history explains how plants function, from how they gain energy and nutrition to how they grow, develop and ultimately die. New to this edition is a section devoted to plants and the environment, exploring how problems created by human activities, such as global warming, pollution of land, water and air, and increasing ocean acidity, are impacting on the lives of plants. King's narrative provides a simple, highly readable introduction, with boxes in each chapter offering additional or more advanced material for readers seeking more detail. He concludes that despite the challenges posed by growing environmental perils, plants will continue to dominate our planet.

Molecular farming in plants is a relatively young subject of sciences. As plants can offer an inexpensive and convenient platform for the large-scale production of recombinant proteins with various functions, the driven force from the giant market for recombinant protein pharmaceuticals and industrial enzymes makes this subject grow and advance very quickly. To summarize recent advances, current challenges and future directions in molecular farming, international authorities were invited to write this book for researchers, teachers and students who are interested in this subject. This book, with the focus on the most advanced cutting-edge breakthroughs, covers all the essential aspects of the field of molecular farming in plants: from expression technologies to downstream processing, from products to safety issues, and from current advances and holdups to future developments.

Desiccation tolerance was essential when plants first began to conquer land, roughly 400 million years ago. While most desiccation-tolerant plants belong to basal phylogenetic taxa, this capacity has also evolved among some vascular plant species.

In this volume renowned experts treat plant desiccation tolerance at the organismic as well as at the cellular level. The diversity of ecophysiological adaptations and acclimations of cyanobacteria, eukaryotic algae, mosses, and lichens is addressed in several chapters. The particular problems of vascular plants during dehydration/rehydration cycles resulting not only from their hydraulic architectures, but also from severe secondary stresses associated with the desiccated state are discussed. Based on the treatment of desiccation tolerance at the organismic level, a second section of the book is devoted to the cell biological level. It delineates the general concepts of functional genomics, epigenetics, genetics, molecular biology and the sensing and signalling networks of systems biology involved in dehydration/rehydration cycles.

This book provides an invaluable compilation of current knowledge, which is a prerequisite for a better understanding of plant desiccation tolerance in natural as well as agro- and forest ecosystems where water is one of the most essential resources.

Deals with the historical perspectives and the current status of doubled haploid production along with its practical implications in basic and applied research. It highlights various haploid production methods with a comprehensive discussion on their pros and cons, bottlenecks, and embryogenic pathways. The review also describes in detail the results of molecular and genomic studies conducted to investigate the underlying principles of this spectacular technique that has changed the status of many species from recalcitrant to responsive over the last ninety years. "

Reproductive biology is the basis of species improvement and a thorough understanding of this is needed for plant improvement, whether by conventional or biotechnological methods. This book presents an up to date and comprehensive description of reproduction in lower plants, gymnosperms and higher plants. It covers general plant biology, pollination, pollen-pistil interaction, post-fertilization changes, and seed dormancy.

The Genetics and Genomics of the Brassicaceae provides a review of this important family (commonly termed the mustard family, or Cruciferae). The family contains several cultivated species, including radish, rocket, watercress, wasabi and horseradish, in addition to the vegetable and oil crops of the Brassica genus. There are numerous further species with great potential for exploitation in 21st century agriculture, particularly as sources of bioactive chemicals. These opportunities are reviewed, in the context of the Brassicaceae in agriculture. More detailed descriptions are provided of the genetics of the cultivated Brassica crops, including both the species producing most of the brassica vegetable crops (B. rapa and B. oleracea) and the principal species producing oilseed crops (B. napus and B. juncea). The Brassicaceae also include important "model" plant species. Most prominent is Arabidopsis thaliana, the first plant species to have its genome sequenced. Natural genetic variation is reviewed for A. thaliana, as are the genetics of the closely related A. lyrata and of the genus Capsella. Self incompatibility is widespread in the Brassicaceae, and this subject is reviewed. Interest arising from both the commercial value of crop species of the Brassicaceae and the importance of Arabidopsis thaliana as a model species, has led to the development of numerous resources to support research. These are reviewed, including germplasm and genomic library resources, and resources for reverse genetics, metabolomics, bioinformatics and transformation. Molecular studies of the genomes of species of the Brassicaceae revealed extensive genome duplication, indicative of multiple polyploidy events during evolution. In some species, such as Brassica napus, there is evidence of multiple rounds of polyploidy during its relatively recent evolution, thus the Brassicaceae represent an excellent model system for the study of the impacts of polyploidy and the subsequent process of diploidisation, whereby the genome stabilises. Sequence-level characterization of the genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica rapa are presented, along with summaries of comparative studies conducted at both linkage map and sequence level, and analysis of the structural and functional evolution of resynthesised polyploids, along with a description of the phylogeny and karyotype evolution of the Brassicaceae. Finally, some perspectives of the editors are presented. These focus upon the Brassicaceae species as models for studying genome evolution following polyploidy, the impact of advances in genome sequencing technology, prospects for future transcriptome analysis and upcoming model systems.

Mitochondria are the product of a long evolutionary history. It is now a well established fact that mitochondria did evolve from free living bacteria being the common ancestor of both, eukaryotic mitochondria and -proteobacteria. Advances in genome sequencing, the establishment of in organello and in vitro assays to name only a few, contributed significantly to advances in plant mitochondrial research. Second generation sequencing and the ability to directly sequence and analyse the whole plant transcriptome certainly will help to develop the research on plant mitochondria to another level in the future. In this book the current knowledge about plant mitochondria is presented in a series of detailed chapters, which have been organized in five main sections: (i) dynamics, genes and genomes; (ii) transcription and RNA processing; (iii) translation and import; (iv) biochemistry, regulation and function; and (v) mitochondrial dysfunction and repair. These sections consist of two to five chapters, each written by well-known specialists in the field. This book thus provides a comprehensive inside in the field of plant mitochondria for the specialist. The addition of a glossary and text boxes to each chapter provides easy access for readers from other subjects and hopefully will attract young scientist to the fascinating and exiting field of plant mitochondria."

Plant tissue culture is an essential component of Biotechnology which has gained unbeatable recognition in plant sciences for successful micropropagation and improvement of plant species, leading to the commercial application. A number of plant species have been investigated around the globe. This book presents current research on the application of in vitro technology in the improvement of Balanites aegyptiaca Del., a medicinal plant of semi-arid tropics. The worldwide importance of forestry, summed to the lengthy generation cycles of tree species, makes unavoidable development of new technologies that complement conventional tree breeding programmes in order to obtain improved genotypes. Recently, a new set of tools has become available in the past 20 years that combined with traditional plant breeding will allow scientists to generate products that are genetically improved varieties of the future. These set of tools come under the general title of Biotechnology . The three specific biotechnological tools have been successfully used in several programmes of plant conservation, namely, tissue culture techniques for in vitro propagation, the use of molecular markers to assess the degree of variability among population and techniques of long-term conservation such as encapsulation and cryopreservation. Plant tissue culture techniques are particularly relevant and become an alternative not only for large scale propagation of individuals that are threatened, reduce production costs and increase gains to the industry, but also to provide ecological advantages as in phytoremediation or in the establishment of artificial plantings in weed infested site. The book gives a complete documentation of the results and demonstration of Balanites aegyptiaca conducted by the authors over the past 5 years. The end-to-end approach developed through plant tissue culture techniques is reflected in the book and there has been a successful transfer of technology from lab to field. The authors hope that this information would provide valuable data and also be a reference material for future research activities in this area."

This book is a collection of chapters concerning the use of biomass for the sustainable production of energy and chemicals-an important goal that will help decrease the production of greenhouse gases to help mitigate global warming, provide energy security in the face of dwindling petroleum reserves, improve balance of payment problems and spur local economic development. Clearly there are ways to save energy that need to be encouraged more. These include more use of energy sources such as, among others, manure in anaerobic digesters, waste wood in forests as fuel or feedstock for cellulosic ethanol, and conservation reserve program (CRP) land crops that are presently unused in the US. The use of biofuels is not new; Rudolf Diesel used peanut oil as fuel in the ?rst engines he developed (Chap. 8), and ethanol was used in the early 1900s in the US as automobile fuel [Songstad et al. (2009) Historical perspective of biofuels: learning from the past to rediscover the future. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 45:189-192). Brazil now produces enough sugar cane ethanol to make up about 50% of its transportation fuel needs (Chap. 4). The next big thing will be cellulosic ethanol. At present, there is also the use of Miscanthus x giganteous as fuel for power plants in the UK (Chap. 2), bagasse (sugar cane waste) to power sugar cane mills (Chap. 4), and waste wood and sawdust to power sawmills (Chap. 7).

To cope with the increasing problems created by agrochemicals such as plant fertilizers, pesticides and other plant protection agents, biological alternatives have been developed over the past years. These include biopesticides, such as bacteria for the control of plant diseases, and biofertilizer to improve crop productivity and quality. Especially plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are as effective as pure chemicals in terms of plant growth enhancement and disease control, in addition to their ability to manage abiotic and other stresses in plants. The various facets of these groups of bacteria are treated in this Microbiology Monograph, with emphasis on their emergence in agriculture. Further topics are Bacillus species that excrete peptides and lipopeptides with antifungal, antibacterial and surfactant activity, plant-bacteria-environment interactions, mineral-nutrient exchange, nitrogen assimilation, biofilm formation and cold-tolerant microorganisms.

It is important to include Tuber and Root Crops in the Handbook of Plant Breeding. They include starchy staple crops that are of increasing importance for global food security and relief of poverty, important millennium goals for the United Nations. Indeed, 2008 was the UN International Year of the Potato in recognition of this role of the potato as the world s third most important food crop after wheat and rice. The other major staples are cassava, sweetpotato and yam. Together they occupy about 50 million hectares, with production at 640 million metric tons, of which 70% is in developing countries. In total there are more than 30 species of Root and Tuber Crops grown in the world today. Given the content of other volumes in the series, it makes sense to include sugar and fodder beets; swedes and turnips; and minor root and tuber crops so that the book series is as complete as possible. Like the other volumes in the series, this one will present information on the latest in applied plant breeding using the current advances in the field, from an efficient use of genetic resources to the impact of biotechnology in plant breeding. Seven crop specific chapters are proposed, together with an introduction to this diverse set of plant species. Outstanding scientists for each crop species are proposed as senior authors, who may invite co-authors to contribute part of a chapter. In order to increase the overall acceptance of the volume, balance will be sought with authors from different research groups/countries who will be asked to contribute and collaborate where appropriate. The book should be of interest to researchers in both academic and industrial settings, and in both developed and developing countries, as well as students and teachers of plant breeding. It is currently extremely important to educate and train a new generation of plant breeders given the challenges faced by humankind in producing more food for an expanding global population during a period of environmental (including climate) change.

SpringerBriefs in Biotech Patents presents timely reports on intellectual properties (IP) issues and patent aspects in the field of biotechnology. In this volume the limits of patentability are addressed, a question that is often raised when it comes to biotechnological inventions: The first section addresses current issues in the patentability of plants produced by essentially biological processes including the controversy between farmer's privilege and patent exhaustion with respect to seeds in the US. The second section examines the patentability of human embryonic stem cells in Europe and the US, also considering alternative technologies with respect to their practicability and patentability. The third section focuses on the patentability of genes and nucleic acids, especially the issue of patenting of encoding genes and nucleic acids.

Here, the author has compiled data on about 550 oil-bearing plant species with respect to their content of unsaponifiable matters and oils. This unique information resource offers important information for research and development of food products such as neutraceuticals as well as cosmetics. Unsaponifiable matters have varying effects: Conservation and stability (e.g. lignans, tocopherols, tocotrienols), anti-inflammatory properties (triterpene alcohols), cholesterol-lowering (sterols), well tolerated occlusive effect on the skin (squalene). Information is provided in a clear and systematic fashion, including data on relevant chemical families and pertinent chemical structures. Also included is a thesaurus of English, Latin and French plant species names as well as 655 references to the scientific literature.

Dr Samuel Johnson, that famous eighteenth century lexicographer, said of oats 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people'. And presumably it was a Scotsman who riposted 'But what people and what horses ' That exchange encapsulates much of the history and role of oats - a cereal, once important as human food in parts of northern Europe but latterly used mainly as animal feed, especially favoured for horses. Although no longer a major food anywhere, oats still have a special and favoured niche in the cuisine of people living in the cooler and wetter regions of some parts of northern Europe. However, there is currently a resurgence of interest in the crop, because there is now considerable scientific evidence to support the view of Scotsmen who never doubted its dietary value. This book - very much an international effort, carefully orchestrated by Robert Welch - traces the origin, history and scientific progress which forms a sound basis for any further crop improvement and for broadening the utilization and marketing of oat products. Should rational consider ations lead to an increase in the importance of this cereal, I, for one, would be glad since I believe the rural landscape is the poorer for the increased rarity of golden fields of rippling oats which I used to be involved in harvesting."

Secondary pollen presentation is presentation of pollen to vectors by structures other than anthers, either passively or via a specialized protection and delivery system. The main part of the book describes secondary pollen presentation genus-by-genus in 25 families. The subject has never been extensively reviewed, although secondary pollen presentation occurs in the largest family of flowering plants, the Asteraceae (Compositae), and a large family of great economic importance, the Leguminosae. Now material from the scattered literature is brought together and supplemented with original observations. Many species are illustrated and each family is individually discussed. The last two chapters provide an overview of the whole topic. All the main functions that secondary pollen presentation may perform can be carried out in other plants without it. It is concluded from this that the evolution of secondary pollen presentation has been subject to constraint and canalization. The floral biology of most plants with secondary pollen presentation has not been adequately studied. Appendix 1 points to a wide range of topics on which research at various technical and academic levels is needed. The book should also become a reference work for morphologists, systematists, and floral ecologists.

Stalking the Wild Sweetgrass: Domestication and Horticulture of the Grass Used in African-American Coiled Basketry is concerned with the historical domestication of sweetgrass, the main construction/structural grass used in the three century old African-American tradition of coiled basketry in South Carolina. During the plantation era in southern agriculture, sweetgrass baskets were made for post-harvest processing and storage of rice by enslaved Africans from Lower Cape Fear, North Carolina to northern Florida. Enslaved Africans from the Rice Kingdom in Africa were prized for the basketry and rice agronomic skills and were specially sought by slavery traders. Today, this ancient craft still thrives in the community of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Authored by one of the most renowned experts in the field and filled with illuminating color photographs, this volume provides knowledge of the horticulture of an extremely important wild plant and an example of the perils of plant- and people-based research and experimentation. As one of the few authoritative texts on the subject, Stalking the Wild Sweetgrass: Domestication and Horticulture of the Grass Used in African-American Coiled Basketry is a resourceful volume on wild sweetgrass, suitable for researchers and students alike.

Plant breeding, the domestication and systematic improvement of crop species, is the basis of past and present agriculture. Our so called primitive progenitors selected practically all our present-day crop plants, and the improvement wrought through millenia of selection has so changed some of them that in many cases their links to the past have been obliterated. There is no doubt that this ranks among the greatest of human achievements. Although plant breeding has been a continuous empirical activity for as long as humans have forsaken the vagaries and thrill of hunting for the security and toil of agriculture, genetic crop improvement is now very much of a twentieth-century discipline. Its scientific underpinnings date to the beginning of this century with the discovery of Gregor Mendel's classic 1865 paper on the inheritance of seven characters in the garden pea. If any science can be traced to single event, the best example is surely found in the conception of modern genetics that appears in this single creative work. The relationship of plant breeding progress to advances in genetics has become closely entwined. Mendel himself was concerned with crop improvement and worked on schemes for apple and pear breeding. Plant breeding also has claims on other scientific and agricultural disci plines-botany, plant pathology, biochemistry, statistics, taxonomy, entomology, and cytology, to name a few-and has also impinged on our social, ethical, economic, and political consciousness."

The food, feed, ?ber, and fuel needs of the changing world pose the challenge of doubling or tripling of world food, feed, and ?ber production by the year 2050 to meet the needs of a 11 billion global population. In addition, the dramatic changes in food prices in the recent years further warrant that production and productivity need to be enhanced to ensure adequate supplies. Biotechnology can make a signi?cant contribution to this effort as demonstrated by cotton and other crops; the new advances in biotechnology have made it possible to develop plants that contain genes that were not possible to be developed by sexual means. Cotton has been a leader in the use of biotechnology. With the introduction of Bt cotton, followed by stacked cotton products (insect and herbicide tolerance) and extensive use of molecular breeding tools, cotton cultivation has been much improved. The contributions in this book illustrate the scienti?c advances that are going on in cotton and the impact they continue to deliver for all cotton growers. Twelve percent of the global cotton area is now under biotech products at 15. 5 million ha. The primary bene?ts from using genetically engineered cotton include reduced insecticide use, lower production costs, improved yields, lower farming risks, and increased opportunities to grow cotton in areas of severe pest infestation.