Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants

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By: Martin Ingrouille

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"Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants" provides a 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. In seeking to present the vast topic of plant anatomy and morphology in one relatively brief text, the author relates plant diversity to evolutionary trends in structure, and links differences between plants to their physical and biotic environments. Evolutionary evidence discernible from fossil records is also drawn upon and compared with living forms to help students visualize structures in functional terms as adaptations. The inclusion of clear drawings and a glossary bring a practical flavour to the work which, together with its essentially anti-systematic approach, aims to blow away the dust which has settled on the teaching and learning of descriptive botany.

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

Part 1 Introduction - diversity and adaptation: the names of organisms; studying plant structure; characters. Part 2 The plant body - plant behaviour: plants are different from animals; the environment of plants; plant behaviour; studying plant structure. Part 3 The first land plants - patterns of diversity: plant fossils; algal ancestors; an early community of land plants; the first great adaptive radiation; leaves; the axis; a summary of land plant groups. Part 4 Sex and dispersal - gametas, spores, seeds and fruits: the alternation of generations; the sporophyte; the gametophyte; evolutionary trends in reproduction; reproduction in seed plants; classification. Part 5 Flowers - evolution and diversity: the evolution of the flowering plants; cross pollination; breeding systems; evolutionary trends in the flower; the "Polupetalae"; the "Sympetalae"; the monocotyledons (class Liliopsida); wind pollination (Anemophily); the classification of flowering plants. Part 6 Trees - adaptations in forests and jungles: wood anatomy; tree architecture; alternative tree forms; leaves; bark and periderm; epiphytes. Part 7 Adaptive growth forms - the limiting physical environment: water relations; the bryophytes - non-vascular plants; gas relations; hydrophytes; helophytes; nutrient relations; dealing with extremes of temperature. Part 8 Competition, herbivory and dispersal - the biotic environment: reproductive strategies; the response to herbivory; dispersal. Part 9 Cultivated plants - engineered plants: exploited diversity, direct evolution; future prospects.

ISBN: 9780412442308
ISBN-10: 0412442302
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 340
Publisher: Chapman and Hall
Country of Publication: GB
Dimensions (cm): 25.4 x 17.78 x 1.85
Weight (kg): 0.61