Abstract
Provided some moisture is available, and this need only be as much as will condense in dew from a cloud zone, there is scarcely any habitat in the world that is too hostile to support plant life. The variety of adaptation found in green plants has produced species with roots that live and extract nutrition from every possible substrate. With some species the roots may hang in air (figure 6.1) while in others they are to be found buried in every type of soil from pure sand and gravel to peat, or even—as with hydrophytes—totally submerged in water. The ecological enterprise of plants in obtaining their nutrients provides ample evidence of the truth of Spinoza’s maxim (even if a little out of context) that ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’.
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Further Reading
A. D. Bradshaw, M. J. Chadwick, D. Joyett and R. W. Snaydon, ‘Experimental Investigations into the mineral Nutrition of Several Grass Species; IV Nitrogen level’, J. Ecol., 52 (1964) pp. 665–76.
D. H. Kohl, G. B. Shearer and B. Commoner, ‘Fertilizer Nitrogen: Contribution to Nitrate in Surface Water in a Corn Belt Water Shed’, Science, 174 (1971) pp. 1331–4.
K. D. White, Roman farming (Thames & Hudson, London, 1970).
Nutrient Absorption
E. Epstein, Mineral Nutrition of Plants: Principles and Perspectives (Wiley, New York, 1972).
J. L. Harley, Biology of Mycorrhiza (Leonard Hill, London, 1969).
H. Lundegårdh, Plant Physiology (Elsevier, New York, 1966).
J. S. Pate and B. E. S. Gunning, ‘Transfer cells’, A. Rev. Pl. Physiol., 23 (1972) pp. 173–96.
R. N. Robertson, Protons, Electrons, Phosphorylation and Active Transport (Cambridge University Press, 1968).
Mineral Supply and Plant Growth
M. M. R. K. Afridi and E. J. Hewitt, ‘The Inducible Formation and Stability of Nitrate Reductase in Higher Plants’, J. exp. Bot., 16 (1965) pp. 628–45.
G. Bond, ‘Fixation of Nitrogen by Higher Plants other than Legumes’, A. Rev. Pl. Physiol., 18 (1967) pp. 107–26.
C. D. Pigott and K. Taylor, The Distribution of some Woodland Herbs in Relation to the Supply of Phosphorus and Nitrogen in the Soil’, J. Ecol., 52 (1964) pp. 175–85.
W. D. P. Stewart, ‘Algal Fixation of Atmospheric Nitrogen, Pl. Soil, 32 (1970) pp. 555–88.
Minerals with Adverse Effects on Plant Growth
A. D. Bradshaw, R. S. McNeilly and R. P. G. Gregory, ‘Industrialization, Evolution and the Development of Heavy Metal Tolerance in Plants’, Symp. Br. ecol. Soc., 5 (1965) pp. 327–43.
D. T. Clarkson, ‘Calcium Uptake by Calcicole and Calcifuge Species in the Genus Agrostis L.’, J. Ecol., 54 (1965) pp. 167–78.
W. Ehrler, ‘Some Effects of Salinity on Rice’, Bot. Gaz., 122 (1960) pp. 102–4.
J. Levitt, Responses of Plants to Environmental Stresses (Academic Press, New York, 1972).
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© 1976 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Crawford, R.M.M. (1976). Mineral Nutrition. In: Hall, M.A. (eds) Plant Structure, Function and Adaptation. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06571-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06571-4_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-34455-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06571-4
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