Tag: botany

Water is lost through stomata in leaves. If leaves are removed water can be conserved for other physiological processes.

A cabbage is a large terminal bud consisting of many overlapping leaves.

In Passiflora, the tendrils are modified axillary buds that help the plant climb.

Maize (corn) has been so heavily domesticated that it cannot disperse its seeds effectively without human intervention.

Blackberry can be multiplied by root cuttings. Cutting is one of the methods of artificial propagation. Plants with fleshy roots and trees and shrubs that produce suckers are suitable for this method of propagation. These cuttings don’t need humid conditions as they don’t have leaves to lose water. A piece of root with dormant buds is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil. If the conditions are suitable, the piece will grow into the new independent plant, a process known as striking. The new plants thus produced resemble the parent plant. Commercial crop grower takes advantage of the cloning which occurs after vegetative propagation to maintain the favourable traits and product quality. Root cutting is done when plants are dormant and have maximum energy stored in roots. 

Cytokinin is a plant hormone which is involved in various physiological processes. It promotes growth of shoot buds. It also induces cell division and shoot and root morphogenesis. In plant tissue culture, it is applied externally to induce morphogenesis

In leaf and stem cuttings, the explant is taken from the apical portion of leaf or stem as it has a meristematic cell which has active nucleus and cytoplasm. The meristematic cell divides rapidly when cultured on nutrient media and provides virus-free plant. When the apical portion of the leaf or stem culture is sown, it is sown vertically with morphological apical end upwards to ensure maximum growth by keeping the meristematic cell at the top.

Apple, citrus, and mango all are dicots so they can be easily propagated by the technique of grafting. By grafting these plants gives better and quicker yield because for grafting one plant is selected for its roots and this is called the stock or root stock. The other plant is selected for its stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion. The stock and scion are selected from the plants which provides good yield so that it gets transferred to the grafted plant.

The development of roots on a stem while the stem is still attached to the parent plant is called layering. The heavy and closely branched stems of trees like fruit producing trees can be layered by the method of mound layering. The plants are cut near the soil level when they are not growing. Dormant buds on stem produce new shoots in spring. The new shoots are soft basal branches of the stem. When these shoots are covered with mound of soil they grow roots at the bases of shoots.

Air, mound, and serpentine are all valid methods of layering used to propagate new plants.