This book provides current information on synthesis of plant hormones, how their concentrations are regulated, and how they modulate various plant processes. It details how plants sense and tolerate such factors as drought, salinity, and cold temperature, factors that limit plant productivity on earth. It also explains how plants sense two other environmental signals, light and gravity, and modify their developmental patterns in response to those signals. This book takes the reader from basic concepts to the most up-to-date thinking on these topics. * Provides clear synthesis and review of hormonal and environmental regulation of plant growth and development * Contains more than 600 illustrations supplementary information on techniques and/or related topics of interest * Single-authored text provides uniformity of presentation and integration of the subject matter * References listed alphabetically in each section

Plant Growth and Development: A Molecular Approach presents the field of plant development from both molecular and genetic perspectives. This field has evolved at a rapid rate over the past five years through the increasing exploitation of the remarkable plant Arabidopsis. The small genome, rapid life cycle, and ease of transformation of Arabidopsis, as well as the relatively large number of laboratories that are using this plant for their research, have lead to an exponential increase in information about plant development mechanisms.In Plant Growth and Development: A Molecular Approach Professor Fosket synthesizes this flood of new information in a way that conveys to students the excitement of this still growing field. His textbook is based on notes developed over more than ten years of teaching a course on the molecular analysis of plant growth and development and assumes no special knowledge of plant biology. It is intended for advanced undergraduates in plant development, as well as those in plant molecular biology. Graduate students and researchers who are just beginning to work in the field will also find much valuable information in this book. Each chapter concludes with questions for study and review as well as suggestions for further reading. Illustrated with two-color drawings and graphs throughout, and containing up-to-date and comprehensive coverage, Plant Growth and Development: A Molecular Approach will excite and inform students as it increases their understanding of plant science.* * Presents plant development from a molecular and cellular perspective* Illustrates concepts with two-colour diagrams throughout* Offers key study questions and guides to further reading within each chapter* Gives an up-to-date and thorough treatment of this increasingly important subject area* Derived from the author's many years of teaching plant developmental biology

Patterns in Plant Development offers an introduction to the development of the whole plant.

Over recent years, progress in micropropagation has not been as rapid as many expected and, even now, relatively few crops are produced commercially. One reason for this is that the biology of material growing in vitro has been insufficiently understood for modifications to standard methods to be made based on sound physiological principles. However, during the past decade, tissue culture companies and others have invested considerable effort to reduce the empirical nature of the production process. The idea of the conference `Physiology, Growth and Development of Plants and Cells in Culture' (Lancaster, 1992) was to introduce specialists in different areas of plant physiology to micropropagators, with the express aims of disseminating as wide a range of information to as large a number of participants as possible, and beginning new discussions on the constraints and potentials affecting the development of in vitro plant production methods. This book is based on presentations from the conference and has been divided into two main sections, dealing with either aspects of the in vitro environment -- light, nutrients, water, gas -- or with applied aspects of the culture process -- morphogenesis, acclimation, rejuvenation, contamination.

There are many recent works on the topic of light and plant growth. These have not only been written by experts, but are also, in the main, written for experts (or, at least, for those who already have a fair understanding of the subject). This book has its origins in a six-week course in plant photophysiology, and its aim is to provide an introduction to the subject at an advanced undergraduate level. The imagined audience is simply a student who has asked the questions: In what ways does light affect plant growth, and how does it do it? The book is limited to aspects of photomorphogenesis. Photo synthesis is only considered where its pigments impinge on photo morphogenic investigations, or where its processes provide illustrative examples of particular interactions between light and biological material. Chapter 1 gives a general account of the various ways in which light affects plant development, and introduces topics which are subsequently covered in greater detail. In all the chapters, are special topic 'boxes', consisting of squared-off sections of text. These are simply devices for presenting explanatory background material, or material that I myself find particularly intriguing.