Missing links: the genetic architecture of flower and floral diversification

Variations in floral architecture are evolutionarily and economically important, affecting features such as pollination, predation and seed dispersal. However, in spite of the central role of flowers in plant reproduction, agriculture and horticulture, the processes responsible for the origin and subsequent evolution of the flower remain fundamental problems in plant biology. Major questions include the following. •How did flowers become bisexual, given that male and female reproductive organs are in separate structures in all extant gymnosperms? •How did the major organs (sepals, petals, stamens and carpels) originate? What genes control the number, arrangement and fusion of floral organs? •Which effector genes generate the characteristic features of these major organs? •Which genes control floral initiation and development throughout the angiosperms, especially in the most basal lineages, and how do they compare with those in model organisms? •How much of the developmental machinery is common to most lineages and how much is peculiar to restricted groups of angiosperms?