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Monocotyledons

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Sieve Elements

Abstract

The application of electron microscopy in biological research has yielded a wealth of information on phloem structure and function, with special emphasis being placed on the main conducting unit, the sieve element. One of the most controversial issues of phloem investigation has been the nature of the mature sieve-plate pores: open or occluded? A clear understanding of sieve-element structure at successive stages of development is thus of fundamental importance if one is to elucidate the mechanism of translocation in the sieve tubes. Considerable effort has been devoted during the last two decades to advancing our knowledge on the structure and function of the monocotyledons phloem. Although monocotyledons constitute a broad taxonomic group within the plant kingdom, including species wellknown through the centuries for their importance as food sources or as excellent pasture crops, they have been considerably less investigated in respect to phloem structure than the dicotyledons. From the evolutionary point of view, the monocotyledons are monophyletic on the basis of two character conditions: (1) they have a single cotyledon, whereas the dicotyledons have two; (2) their sieve tube plastids accumulate proteins in the form of triangular or cuneate bodies (Dahlgren et al. 1985). This chapter is therefore aimed at familiarizing the reader with the most salient structural features of sieve elements in monocotyledons and at comparing them with the corresponding structures of other groups, especially the dicotyledons.

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Authors
  1. Eleftherios P. Eleftheriou
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zellenlehre, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 230, D-6900, Heidelberg, Germany

    H.-D. Behnke

  2. Department of Botany, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52242, USA

    R. D. Sjolund

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Eleftheriou, E.P. (1990). Monocotyledons. In: Behnke, HD., Sjolund, R.D. (eds) Sieve Elements. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74445-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74445-7_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-74447-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-74445-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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