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Nature surrenders flowery secrets to international team

May 25, 2007

A new unifying theory for 'inflorescences'

The poet Dylan Thomas wrote, "The force that drives the green fuse drives the flower." Now, a team of international scientists has unlocked some of the secrets of that force: it has described the rules that govern how plants arrange flowers into branching structures, known in technical terms as 'inflorescences.' Nature has literally thousands of examples of inflorescences, which include the flower clusters of Mountain Ash, the tiny filigreed blossoms on Lilac and the stalkier inflorescences in Fireweed.




Published in the May 24 online edition of the journal Science, the team's paper outlines the mathematical model, molecular genetics and evolutionary processes that work together to create inflorescences as different as Forget-Me-Not and Snapdragon.

"This is a unifying theory that provides an explanation for the diversity of inflorescences we see in nature," says Dr. Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, the paper's lead author and a University of Calgary computer scientist. "It was thought that separate mechanisms explained the many differences in form and development of inflorescences in nature, but now we see that these are just facets of the same mechanism."

Dr. Lawrence Harder, a University of Calgary biologist and co-author of the paper, says one of their model's key features is that it is able to anticipate regional variations in inflorescence structures and recognizes that some developmental patterns are impossible.

"What we've done here is to fit together fundamental science from different disciplines to create this exciting new theory," Harder says. "We can now say with more certainty why we have all this diversity that surrounds us; it's also possible that our approach can be adapted to other fields."

A mathematical model that Prusinkiewicz developed has a unique property of producing diverse inflorescence structures with relatively small changes in input, and is a key element of the overall theory. Another is the work of molecular geneticist Dr. Enrico Coen of the United Kingdom's John Innes Centre, who related Prusinkiewicz's model to the action of plant genes.

University of Calgary



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Inflorescence
by Sarah Hannah

In this fierce, often witty memoir-in-verse, Sarah Hannah confronts her role as caretaker of her dying, mentally ill mother, artist Renee Rothbein. Entwining the lore of wildflowers with richly evocative language, Hannah's stunningly contemporary voice summons truth and love from loss with unflinching honesty and candor. Poems from this collection have been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes. ...



Morphology of Flowers and Inflorescences
by Focko Weberling

Flowers and inflorescences of the "Amentiferae" (The botanical review)
by Ernst Cleveland Abbe

Castaneoid inflorescences from the middle Eocene of Tennesseee and the diagnostic value of pollen (at the subfamily level) in the Fagaceae
by William Louis Crepet

Scum on clay wares;: Its cause and prevention with a discussion of efflorescence and inflorescence
by Ellis Lovejoy

Inheritance of ramose inflorescence in maize (Bulletin / United States Department of Agriculture)
by J. H Kempton

Anatomical and morphological studies on the carpellate infloresence of Batis maritima L (University of Hawaii)
by Dennis Conroy Greathouse

Aestivation and its terminology (American Journal of Science and Arts)
by Asa Gray

Investigations of the causes and control of malformation of mango inflorescence: Final report, April 1976 to June, 1980
by Niaz Ali

The morphogenesis of the inflorescence, flower and fruit of Pyrus nivalis Jacquin var. orientalis Terpo (Mededelingen Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen, Nederland, 70-5)
by G Staritsky

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