Seed coat development in explosively dispersed seeds of Cardamine hirsuta.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Seeds are dispersed by explosive coiling of the fruit valves in Cardamine hirsuta. This rapid coiling launches the small seeds on ballistic trajectories to spread over a 2 m radius around the parent plant. The seed surface interacts with both the coiling fruit valve during launch and subsequently with the air during flight. We aim to identify features of the seed surface that may contribute to these interactions by characterizing seed coat differentiation.

Methods

Differentiation of the outermost seed coat layers from the outer integuments of the ovule involves dramatic cellular changes that we characterize in detail at the light and electron microscopical level including immunofluorescence and immunogold labelling.

Key results

We found that the tw

SUBMITTER: Neumann U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7304473 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature