Flower Development in Silene: Morphology and Sequence of Initiation of Primordia

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The initiation and development of the flower of Silene coeli-rosa was followed by examining apices by scanning electron microscopy. The sepals, stamens and carpets are initiated in a spiral sequence, the direction of the spiral king the opposite of the acropetal helix of unequal axillary buds at the nodes below the flower. The petals are initiated almost simultaneously and at the same time as the first few stamens. The change in phyllotaxis from opposite and decussate in the vegetative shoot to spiral in the flower occurs with the displacement of the first two sepals away from the mid-line of the apex and towards the axillary bud at the node below the flower. The sizes of the sepals and stamens are a function of their age since initiation but the petals grow more slowly. The Silene flower can be interpreted as a shoot bearing primordia with associated axillary primordia, some of the latter being precocious in their development.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: