Shedding of Plant Parts focuses on the anatomical, physiological, and ecological features of shedding of vegetative and reproductive parts of plants. This book encompasses both natural and induced shedding. Organized into 12 chapters, this book first outlines the extent of shedding of plant cells, tissues, and organs and summarizes the biological and economic implications of such shedding. Separate chapters follow that discuss anatomical and histochemical changes in leaf abscission; the physiological ecology and internal regulation of abscission; and the shedding of shoots, branches, bark, roots, pollen, seeds, and reproductive structures of forest trees. This book also explains the anatomical changes in abscission of reproductive structures, chemical thinning of flowers and fruits, and chemical control of fruit abscission. This book will be valuable to plant anatomists, pathologists, and physiologists, and to agronomists, arborists, biochemists, ecologists, entomologists, foresters, horticulturists, landscape architects, meteorologists, and soil scientists.

Horticultural Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on topics in horticultural science and technology covering both basic and applied research. Topics covered include the horticulture of fruits, vegetables, nut crops, and ornamentals. These review articles, written by world authorities, bridge the gap between the specialized researcher and the broader community of horticultural scientists and teachers.

In 1958, a single volume in the original series of this Encyclopedia adequately summarized the state of knowledge about plant carbohydrates. Expansion into two volumes in the New Series highlights the explosive increase in information and the heightened interest that attended this class of compounds in the interven ing years. Even now the search has just begun. Much remains to be accom plished; e.g., a full description of the plant cell wall in chemical terms. Why this growing fascination with plant carbohydrates? Clearly, much credit goes to those who pioneered the complex chemistry of polyhydroxylated compounds and to those who later sorted out the biochemical features of these molecules. But there is a second aspect, the role of carbohydrates in such biological func tions as host-parasite and pollen-pistil interactions, the mating reaction in fungi, symbiosis, and secretion to name a few. Here is ample reason for anyone concerned with the plant sciences to turn aside for a moment and consider how carbohydrates, so many years neglected in favor of the study of proteins and nucleic acids, contribute to the physiological processes of growth and devel opment in plants.

This NATO Advanced Research Workshop held 25-30 September, 1988 at the Villa Gualino, Turin, Italy, was the first international meeting of its kind to be devoted solely to cell separation in plants. The partial or complete dissociation of one cell from another is an integral process of differentiation. Partial cell separations are basic physiological components of the overall programme of plant development. Complete cell separations are major events in the ripening of fruits, and the shedding of plant parts. Unscheduled cell separations commonly occur when tissues are subjected to pathogenic invasion. Environmental stresses too, evoke their own separation responses. Over the past five years much new knowledge has been acquired on the regulation of gene expression in specific stages of cell differentiation. Specific molecular markers have been identified that designate the competence of cells for achieving separation. Certain of the chemical signals (hormones, elicitors) that must be emitted or perceived by cells to initiate and sustain separation, are now known to us, and the resulting cell wall changes have come under close chemical scrutiny. The Turin meeting was a focus for those currently involved in such investigations. It assessed factors controlling cell separation in a wide spectrum of different cell types under a variety of conditions.