Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants

by M. Ingrouille

Overview

Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants provides a fresh and long overdue treatment of plant anatomy and morphology for the biology undergraduate of today. Setting aside the traditional plod through the plant taxa, the author adopts a problem-based functional approach, exploring plant diversity as a series of different solutions to the design problems facing plant life on land.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780412442308
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	05/31/1992
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1992
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

1 The study of diversity.- 1.1 The names of organisms.- 1.2 Studying plant structure.- 1.3 Characters.- 2 The plant body: plant behaviour.- 2.1 Plants are different from animals.- 2.2 The environment of plants.- 2.3 Plant growth and behaviour.- 3 The first land plants: patterns of diversity.- 3.1 Plant fossils.- 3.2 Algal ancestors.- 3.3 An early community of land plants.- 3.4 Diversifying on land.- 3.5 The axis and its appendages.- 3.6 The age of gymnosperms: extinct seed plant groups.- 4 Sex and dispersal: gametes, spores, seeds and fruits.- 4.1 The alternation of generations.- 4.2 The sporophyte.- 4.3 The gametophyte.- 4.4 Heterothallism.- 4.5 Seed plants: the ovule.- 4.6 A classification of land plants.- 5 Flowers: evolution and diversity.- 5.1 The evolution of angiosperms.- 5.2 Cross pollination.- 5.3 Breeding systems.- 5.4 Evolutionary trends.- 5.5 A review of angiosperms.- 6 Trees: adaptations in woods and forests.- 6.1 Wood anatomy.- 6.2 Tree architecture.- 6.3 Leaves.- 6.4 Bark and periderm.- 6.5 Epiphytes.- 7 Adaptive growth forms: the limiting physical environment.- 7.1 Water relations.- 7.2 The bryophytes; non-vascular plants.- 7.3 Gas relations.- 7.4 Aquatic plants.- 7.5 Nutrient relations.- 7.6 Surviving environmental extremes.- 7.7 Life forms.- 8 Competition, herbivory and dispersal: the limiting biotic environment.- 8.1 Reproductive strategies.- 8.2 Herbivory.- 8.3 Dispersal.- 8.4 Establishment.- 8.5 A behavioural classification of plants.- 9 Cultivated plants: conclusion.- 9.1 Exploited diversity, the uses of plants.- 9.2 The genetic history of crops.- 9.3 Future prospects.- 9.4 Conclusion.- References.

Editorial Reviews

..a broad introduction to the biology of land plants... - Biological Abstracts

From the Publisher