ISHS Acta Horticulturae 56: Symposium on Juvenility in Woody Perennials
DEVELOPMENT, MATURITY AND GERIATRICS OF WOODY PLANTS |
| Author: | F.C. Steward |
| Abstract:
In the banquet address for the North American Symposium, Professor Steward discussed the potential of cells to grow and develop as individuals and as members of a community of cells, i.e. as an organism. He illustrated his talk with examples drawn from his vast experience in working with carrot cells in culture. He related a particularly interesting anecdote about plane trees in London which had been completely stripped of leaves, twigs and small branches by a bomb blast during World War II. The following year, the trunk and remaining branches were completely covered by foliage from myriad buds which had apparently been formed adventitiously after the bomb blast. His explanation for the phenomenon was that connections between cells within the trees had been severed by the force of the blast permitting many cells to organize new meristems and form adventitious buds in a manner somewhat related to the formation of sphaeroblasts. | |
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