JXB Advance Access published online on June 9, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erp176
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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RESEARCH PAPER |
Morphogenesis at the inflorescence shoot apex of Anagallis arvensis: surface geometry and growth in comparison with the vegetative shoot
1Department of Biophysics and Morphogenesis of Plants, University of Silesia, Jagiello
ska 28, 40-032 Katowice, Poland
2Institute of Plant Biology, University of Wroc
aw, Kanonia 6/8, 50-328 Wrocaw, Poland
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Dorota.Kwiatkowska{at}us.edu.pl
Quantitative analysis of geometry and surface growth based on the sequential replica method is used to compare morphogenesis at the shoot apex of Anagallis arvensis in the reproductive and vegetative phases of development. Formation of three types of lateral organs takes place at the Anagallis shoot apical meristem (SAM): vegetative leaf primordia are formed during the vegetative phase and leaf-like bracts and flower primordia during the reproductive phase. Although the shapes of all the three types of primordia are very similar during their early developmental stages, areal growth rates and anisotropy of apex surface growth accompanying formation of leaf or bract primordia are profoundly different from those during formation of flower primordia. This provides an example of different modes of de novo formation of a given shape. Moreover, growth accompanying the formation of the boundary between the SAM and flower primordium is entirely different from growth at the adaxial leaf or bract primordium boundary. In the latter, areal growth rates at the future boundary are the lowest of all the apex surface, while in the former they are relatively very high. The direction of maximal growth rate is latitudinal (along the future boundary) in the case of leaf or bract primordium but meridional (across the boundary) in the case of flower. The replica method does not enable direct analysis of growth in the direction perpendicular to the apex surface (anticlinal direction). Nevertheless, the reconstructed surfaces of consecutive replicas taken from an individual apex allow general directions of SAM surface bulging accompanying primordium formation to be recognized. Precise alignment of consecutive reconstructions shows that the direction of initial bulging during the leaf or bract formation is nearly parallel to the shoot axis (upward bulging), while in the case of flower it is perpendicular to the axis (lateral bulging). In future, such 3D reconstructions can be used to assess displacement velocity fields so that growth in the anticlinal direction can be assessed. In terms of self-perpetuation, the inflorescence SAM of Anagallis differs from the SAM in the vegetative phase in that the centrally located region of slow growth is less distinct in the inflorescence SAM. Moreover, the position of this slowly growing zone with respect to cells is not stable in the course of the meristem ontogeny.
Key words: Anagallis arvensis, bract primordium, flower primordium, geometry, growth, shoot apical meristem
Received 12 March 2009; Revised 7 May 2009 Accepted 8 May 2009