PREFACE 



The principal purpose of this book is to discuss in its biological 

 framework, the conversion from the vegetative to the reproductive 

 state in higher plants. There are two aspects to the study of this 

 conversion; first, the changes within the plant which lead to the con- 

 version, and second, the conversion itself. The first of these aspects 

 has been studied most and is emphasized. 



The extent of scientific development in this field is quite amazing. 

 Probably only a small portion of the world's population is aware of 

 this rather isolated branch of science, but a complete collection of 

 papers relating to the physiology of flowering would fill a rather 

 impressive bookshelf. It would be fairly easy to find 1000 such papers. 

 Thus a straightforward complete review of this work would probably 

 result in a very thick volume. Luckily, space allotments from the 

 Publisher saved the author's time and patience from being put to 

 such a test. A complete summary volume would be of unquestioned 

 reference value to science, but unless the author were gifted, such a 

 condensed recounting of experimental work would quite probably 

 make for very dry reading. All of this poses a dilemma for an author: 

 he can try to cover the field and probably lose his reader in the mass 

 of conflicting and often unrelated facts, or he can concentrate on 

 certain aspects of the physiology of flowering and thereby slight 

 other aspects which may be equally interesting and important. I 

 decided on the second approach. 



The book is addressed to graduate students and others who might 

 be interested in the topic presented approximately at the graduate 

 level. It is assumed that the reader has a good background in some 

 phase of biology but that his acquaintance with the physiology of 

 flowering is rather cursory. It was my intention to discuss broad 

 aspects of the topic in the first four chapters, but in some respects 

 these became as specific as the ones which follow. I feel that they 

 will provide a good introduction to the last part of the book for the 

 student who already has some knowledge about the flowering process, 



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