scholarly journals Environmental Control of Flowering in Pennsylvania Sedge

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-306
Author(s):  
Esther E. McGinnis ◽  
Alan G. Smith ◽  
Mary H. Meyer

Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica) is an upland forest sedge with restoration and horticultural potential as a low-maintenance groundcover for dry shade. For large landscape and restoration plantings, seed or achenes in this case are much preferred due to lower labor and material costs. However, pennsylvania sedge typically produces few achenes in its native habitat. As a first step in improving achene production, this research evaluated the effect of vernalization and photoperiod on floral initiation and development. We conclude that this sedge is an obligate short-day plant that does not require vernalization for flowering. Plants flowered when exposed to daylengths of 6 to 12 hours. Flowering was completely inhibited with 14-hour photoperiods. Pennsylvania sedge was florally determined after 4 weeks of 8-hour photoperiods. Inflorescence quantity and normal floral development varied by clone and by weeks of exposure to 8-hour photoperiods. For two of the clones, the largest number of normal monoecious inflorescences was produced with 8 to 10 weeks of 8-hour photoperiods while the other two clones only required 6 to 8 weeks of exposure to inductive photoperiods. Therefore, it is important to evaluate observable variation between clones when attempting to propagate pennsylvania sedge.

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Sedgley

Floral initiation and development in Acacia pycnantha were studied under three environments. Two had ambient southern Australian temperatures of warm summer (mean max. 32°C, mean min. 16°C) and cool winter (mean max. 19°C, mean min. 8°C), one with full sunlight (outside) and the other with 30% light intensity (shadehouse). The other environment (glasshouse) had slightly lower than normal light intensity and a relatively constant year round temperature of mean 28°C maximum and 16°C minimum. Plants were scored for microscopic and macroscopic evidence of floral initiation and development. Floral primordia were initiated all year round under all environments. Floral development proceeded normally under ambient conditions of temperature and light, and anthesis occurred between August and October. Under low light intensity, floral development did not progress beyond a very early stage and macroscopically visible racemes were rare. Under the constant temperatures, floral development proceeded normally up to the stage of microsporogenesis and megasporogenesis. Meiosis did not occur and inflorescence buds ceased growth and were shed from the plant. Plants were transferred between the outside and glasshouse conditions in June, at around the stage of meiosis. Those transferred from outside to the glasshouse did not flower whereas some of those transferred from the glasshouse to outside flowered, but later and for a shorter period than plants maintained outside throughout. It appears that a 70% reduction in sunlight inhibits floral development at an early stage and that temperatures of approximately mean maximum 19°C and minimum 8°C are required for meiosis in Acacia pycnantha.


Chromosoma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Phuong T. N. Hoang ◽  
Jean-Marie Rouillard ◽  
Jiří Macas ◽  
Ivona Kubalová ◽  
Veit Schubert ◽  
...  

AbstractDuckweeds represent a small, free-floating aquatic family (Lemnaceae) of the monocot order Alismatales with the fastest growth rate among flowering plants. They comprise five genera (Spirodela, Landoltia, Lemna, Wolffiella, and Wolffia) varying in genome size and chromosome number. Spirodela polyrhiza had the first sequenced duckweed genome. Cytogenetic maps are available for both species of the genus Spirodela (S. polyrhiza and S. intermedia). However, elucidation of chromosome homeology and evolutionary chromosome rearrangements by cross-FISH using Spirodela BAC probes to species of other duckweed genera has not been successful so far. We investigated the potential of chromosome-specific oligo-FISH probes to address these topics. We designed oligo-FISH probes specific for one S. intermedia and one S. polyrhiza chromosome (Fig. 1a). Our results show that these oligo-probes cross-hybridize with the homeologous regions of the other congeneric species, but are not suitable to uncover chromosomal homeology across duckweeds genera. This is most likely due to too low sequence similarity between the investigated genera and/or too low probe density on the target genomes. Finally, we suggest genus-specific design of oligo-probes to elucidate chromosome evolution across duckweed genera.


1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 647-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Posluszny ◽  
R. Sattler

The floral appendages of Potamogeton densus are initiated in an acropetal sequence. The first primordia to be seen externally are those of the lateral tepals, though sectioning young floral buds (longitudinally, parallel to the inflorescence axis) reveals initial activity in the region of the lower median (abaxial) tepal and stamen at a time when the floral meristem is not yet clearly demarcated. The lateral (transversal) stamens are initiated simultaneously and unlike the median stamens each arises as two separate primordia. The upper median (adaxial) tepal and stamen develop late in relation to the other floral appendages, and in some specimens are completely absent. Rates of growth of the primordia vary greatly. Though the lower median tepal and stamen are initiated first, they grow slowly up to gynoecial inception, while the upper median tepal appears late in the developmental sequence but grows rapidly, soon overtaking the other tepal primordia. The four gynoecial primordia arise almost simultaneously, although variation in their sequence of inception occurs. The two-layered tunica of the floral apices gives rise to all floral appendages through periclinal divisions in the second layer. The third layer (corpus) is involved as well in the initiation of the stamen primordia. Procambial strands develop acropetally, lagging behind primordial initiation. The lateral stamens though initiating as two primordia each form a single, central procambial strand, which differentiates after growth between the two primordia of the thecae has occurred. A great amount of deviation from the normal tetramerous flower is found, including completely trimerous flowers, trimerous gynoecia with tetramerous perianth and androecium, and organs differentiating partially as tepals and partially as stamens.


1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marje Molder ◽  
John N. Owens

Plants of Cosmos bipinnatus Cav. ‘Sensation’ (a quantitative short-day plant) were grown under continuous conditions favorable or unfavorable for flowering, and some plants in each group were treated with gibberellic acid (GA3). Floral apices of Cosmos are formed by the transition of previously vegetative apices. The vegetative apex shows a cytohistological zonation pattern superimposed upon a tunica–corpus organization. The vegetative apex passes into an intermediate stage presumed typical of many plants held under non-inductive conditions. This stage is marked by many cytological features characteristic of both reproductive and vegetative apices but leaves continue to be produced. The presence of the intermediate stage accounts for conflicting results obtained in physiological studies since there is great variation in response rate depending on age of plant and the stage of the apex at the start of an experiment. This stage is followed by a typical transitional stage marked by an increase in RNA content, increased mitotic activity, and a change in zonation. Elongation of the apex and internodes occurs followed by initiation of the involucral bracts and floret primordia, marking the beginning of the prefloral and inflorescence stages respectively.GA3 specifically induces Cosmos to flower under non-inductive conditions thereby influencing floral initiation in a facultative short-day plant. Microscopic examination of the rate of apical transition revealed that GA3 substituted effectively for short days but was not as efficient an inducer as were short days.


1973 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
S.J. Wellensiek

Several selected S. armeria lines differing in their reaction to GA3 were treated with GA3 at various concentrations under short-day (SD) or long-day conditions. With SD treatment one application of GA3 at high concentration (10 000 p.p.m. or greater) induced flower formation in certain lines. Stem elongation increased with GA3 concentration and with plant age and was much greater on flowering plants than on non-flowering ones. [For previous related work see HcA 41, 4400.]. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission)


1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
RL Ison ◽  
LR Humphreys

Seedlings of Stylosanthes guianensis var. guianensis cv. Cook and cv. Endeavour were grown in naturally lit glasshouses at Brisbane (lat. 27� 30' S.) at 35/30, 30/25 and 25/20�C (day/night), and were sown so as to emerge at 18-day intervals from 18 January to 11 June. Cook behaved as a long day-short day plant, with seedlings emerging after 5 February flowering incompletely or remaining vegetative until the experiment was terminated in mid-October. In the 25/20�C regimen flowering was incomplete in Cook; in Endeavour flowering was delayed but a conventional short-day response was observed. At 35/30�C Endeavour flowering was inhibited in the shortest days of mid-winter, suggesting a stenophotoperiodic response, but short days were confounded with low levels of irradiance. Minimum duration of the phase from emergence to floral initiation was c. 66-70 days in Cook and c. 40-45 days in Endeavour; the duration of the phase floral initiation to flower appearance was linearly and negatively related to temperature.


1997 ◽  
Vol 128 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. L. CARRECK ◽  
I. H. WILLIAMS

Observations were made in 1994 and 1995 in Hertfordshire of the flowering phenology and attractiveness to beneficial insects of two commercial mixtures of flowering plants intended for set-aside land. These were the Tübingen Mixture from Germany and Ascot Linde SN from the Netherlands. The mixtures were visited by 14 species of Hymenoptera, 14 species of syrphid Diptera and six species of Lepidoptera. Although the mixtures contained 12 and five plant species respectively, Phacelia tanacetifolia was the dominant species to establish, flower and attract insects in both mixtures. The other plants contributed little to flower density or insect diversity. These mixtures are therefore not suitable for UK needs using the present proportions of plant species.


1987 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 869
Author(s):  
WW Stnr ◽  
LR Humphreys

Long-established swards of Brachiaria decumbens cv. Basilisk and of Paspalum plicatulum cv. Rodds Bay at Mt Cotton, south-east Queensland, were cut, field dried and burnt, or cut and the residues removed in late November or early January. Burning initially reduced tillering, especially when the interval between cutting and burning was 7 days, but this difference disappeared in P. plicatulum when there was a long interval to floral initiation. A juvenility requirement was evident in the short day P. plicatulum swards, where late burning or cutting delayed floral initiation 11 days relative to early defoliation. Strong compensatory and hierarchical effects on the components of seed yield occurred, and seed yield was similar in cut or burnt treatments, except for 23% decrease in late cut P. plicatulum. Late defoliated B. decumbens yielded 31% more seed than early defoliated swards, due mainly to reduced spikelet number per raceme (branch). Burning slightly increased synchrony of inflorescence exsertion in P. plicatulum and reduced crop lodging, although in a subordinate experiment with P. plicatulum lodging was positively related to level of nitrogen supply rather than to defoliation treatment.


1967 ◽  
Vol 7 (29) ◽  
pp. 489 ◽  
Author(s):  
DF Cameron

The flowering of seven selections of Townsville lucerne (Stylosanthes humilis HBK) representing a range of maturity types has been studied in the Canberra phytotron. Daylength is the main factor controlling flowering in these selections, all of which showed a strong short day response. At normal temperatures the maximum daylengths at which all plants flowered (the critical daylengths) were 13 hours for the early, 12 hours for the midseason and late-midseason, and 11 1/2 hours for the late selections. However, the midseason selections did flower in a 12 1/2-hour daylength if the light intensity of the supplementary illumination was 20 or 5 ft.c. instead of the normal 50 ft.c. The response of the other selections was not altered at the lower light intensities. Both high night temperature and low day temperature delayed or inhibited flower initiation in the early and midseason selections and these effects were greater at a critical daylength.


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