Abstract
IN Dryopteris aristata an attempt has been made to observe the effect of isolating the apical meristem from the adjacent lateral tissues, while maintaining continuity with the pith parenchyma below. The first step was to ascertain the practicability of the operation. The procedure involves an operation roughly comparable with 'ringing' in an older region of the shoot, in that the incipient vascular tissue is severed. The difficulty lies in the fact that the treatment has to be applied to a minute region—the meristem—the tissue of which is soft, delicate and readily injured. Thereafter it remained to be seen whether a meristem so treated would prove capable of further growth. The successful outcome of such an experiment seemed likely to throw light on (1) morphogenetic processes at the shoot apex; (2) translocat ion of nutrients to the shoot apex; that is, whether this takes place by way of the undifferentiated vascular tissue or by upward diffusion over the whole cross-sectional area of the shoot; (3) the factors influencing the differentiation of the vascular system; that is, whether the effective stimuli proceed basipetally from the apex or acropetally from the older pre-formed parts; and (4) the physiological dominance normally exercised by the shoot apex over lateral buds or bud-primordia.
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WARDLAW, C. An Experimental Treatment of The Apical Meristem in Ferns. Nature 156, 39–41 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156039a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156039a0
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