Preface 



The present volume is an outcome of the author's concern with the 

 problems of plant morphogenesis for over 40 years. During that time he 

 has followed the literature in this field with some care and has seen the 

 subject grow from a relatively minor aspect of botanical science to a much 

 wider recognition as one of the central concerns of biology. New tech- 

 niques and fields of work have developed in it over the years, and its con- 

 tacts with other sciences have grown much closer. Few discussions of the 

 subject as a whole have appeared, however, and no extensive synthesis of 

 its content has been made. The book that follows is an attempt to do 

 this and to organize the field of plant morphogenesis so that it can be 

 studied and taught as an integrated discipline. 



This is no simple task, and botanists will doubtless disagree as to 

 how it should be accomplished. The method adopted here is first to 

 discuss plant growth, emphasizing descriptive and experimental work 

 on cells and meristems. This is followed by a survey of the various 

 categories of morphogenetic phenomena— correlation, polarity, differen- 

 tiation, and the rest— mobilizing under each the major facts that are 

 known about it and the work of the chief contributors to the field. This 

 portion is largely descriptive and serves to pose problems for considera- 

 tion. It is followed by a third section that discusses the major factors 

 operative in the control of plant development and is primarily concerned 

 with physiological and genetic questions. It touches these broad sub- 

 jects, however, only so far as they are concerned with morphogenetic 

 problems and then only in a brief and rather summary fashion. Too 

 frequent repetition of material in the three sections is avoided by numer- 

 ous cross references. 



Throughout the book no attempt is made to go at all completely into 

 most of the topics. From the vast literature on subjects of concern to 

 plant morphogenesis, however, a considerable bibliography has been 

 compiled by means of which the reader is introduced to the more im- 

 portant publications where detailed information may be found. In this 

 bibliography many important earlier papers of general and historical 

 interest have been cited, but emphasis has been placed on relatively 

 recent ones. Where available, review papers have been cited. There is 



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