The Plant Stem

Description

This unique and attractive open access textbook combines the beauty of macroscopic pictures of plant stems with the corresponding colorfully stained images of anatomical micro-structures. In contrast to most botanical textbooks, it presents all the stem characteristics as photographs and shows the microscopic reality. The amount of text is reduced to a minimum, and the scientific information is highlighted with short legends and labeled photographs, allowing readers to focus on the pictures to easily understand how the anatomical structures relate to genetic, ecological, decomposition and technical influences. It includes a chapter devoted to simple anatomical preparation techniques, and further chapters showing the cell content, cell walls, meristematic tissues and stem structures of all major taxonomic units and morphological growth forms in various ecological and climatic regions from subarctic to equatorial latitudes, as well as structures of fossil, subfossil and technically altered wood. This textbook appeals to students and researchers in the fields of plant anatomy, taxonomy, ecology, dendrochronology, history, plant pathology, and evolutionary biology as well as to technologists. Front Matter ....Pages I-VII Introduction (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 1-2 Preparation techniques – Making anatomical structures visible (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 3-5 Morphology of the plant body – Tried and tested for 400 million years (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 7-10 Cellular composition of the plant body (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 11-28 Structure of the cell wall and cell contents (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 29-42 Primary, secondary and tertiary meristems (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 43-79 Stem anatomical structures of major taxonomic units (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 81-120 Evolution of stems (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 121-132 Anatomical adaptations to permanently changed environmental conditions (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 133-139 Anatomical adaptations to temporarily changed environmental conditions (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 141-168 Coexistence of algae, fungi and vascular plants (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 169-171 Wood decay (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 173-182 Fossilization, permineralization, coalification, carbonization and wet wood conservation (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 183-192 Technically altered wood products (Fritz H. Schweingruber, Annett Börner)....Pages 193-195 Back Matter ....Pages 197-207