Introductory Chapter

Abstract

Plants produce a wide variety of reproductive propagules designed to enable them to survive periodic harsh climatic conditions and to increase and multiply thereafter. The process of resurgence of growth of these small packages of genetic information is called germination. In the present volume, germination of only one kind of these propagules is considered: that of the seed or one-seeded fruit of flowering plants. Seeds can contain large amounts of food reserves and for this reason are of fundamental importance to human society. Cultivation of seed-producing plants for purposes of human consumption is the basis of agricultural activities, and the primary reason for the enduring interest shown by humans in the germination process. Germination of seeds is not a simple process and depends on many factors. Thus it cannot be effectively covered by a volume such as this one and a further delimitation of the topic to the interim period between the onset of germination, signaled by imbibition or uptake of water by the seed, and development of the independent plantlet, is made. The fundamental importance of the entire process is indicated by the several books that have been written about it, most recently, for example, those by Khan,¹ Mayer and Poljakoff-Mayber,² and Bewley and Black.³