In a tree, the distribution of leaf inclination angles plays an important role in photosynthesis and water interception. We investigate here the effect of mechanical deformations of leaves due to wind or their own weight on this distribution. First, the specific role of the geometry of the tree is identified and shown to be weak, using models of idealized tree and tools of statistical mechanics...

Heptaldehyde-modified chitosan (heptyl-chitosan, CH-Hp) was investigated as adsorbent for chromatograhic separation of the flavonoids from A. moluccana. The amount of 2"-O-rhamnosylswertisin isolated (30.0 mg) was approx. twice as high as swertisin (17.5 mg). The improved surface hydrophobicity effected by the heptyl groups promoted the separation of flavonoids. From the results obtained, CH-Hp...

The morphology of plant fossils from the Rhynie chert has generated longstanding questions about vascular plant shoot and leaf evolution, for instance, which morphologies were ancestral within land plants, when did vascular plants first arise and did leaves have multiple evolutionary origins? Recent advances combining insights from molecular phylogeny, palaeobotany and evo-devo research address...

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a next-generation polar-orbiting operational environmental sensor with a capability for global aerosol observations. Identifying land aerosol types is important because aerosol types are a basic input in retrieving aerosol optical properties for VIIRS. The VIIRS algorithm can automatically select the optimal land aerosol model by minimizi...

The compounds derived from secondary metabolism in plants perform a variety of ecological functions, providing the plant with resistance to biotic and abiotic factors. The basal levels of these metabolites for each organ, tissue or cell type depend on the development stage of the plant and they may be modified as a response to biotic and/or abiotic stress. As a consequence, the resistance state...

The aim of the work is to classify and authenticate the medicinal plant materials and herbs widely used for Indian herbal medicinal preparation. The quality and authenticity of these leaves are to be ensured for the preparation of herbal medicines. The medicinal plant leaves are thoroughly screened, analyzed and compared with the database to give the correct measures of the texture to which cat...

The objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of organic sources (animal manures vs. plant residues at the rate of 10 t ha-1 each) on the productivity of hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L.) production under different levels of phosphorus (0, 30, 60, and 90 kg P ha-1) fertilization. Two separate field experiments were conducted. In experiment (1), impact of three animal manures sources (ca...

Plant volatiles play important roles in signalling between plants and insects, but their role in communication among plants remains controversial. Previous research on plant-plant communication has focused on interactions between neighbouring plants, largely overlooking the possibility that volatiles function as signals within plants. Here, we show that volatiles released by herbivore-wounded l...

Herein we report the development of anisotropic bimetallic nanoparticles where aerosol gold nanoparticles served as the seeds for the continuous deposition of silver atoms on their surfaces. Initially, aerosol gold nanoparticles were formed by spark discharge and then injected into a silver precursor solution in an impinging device. The gold nanoparticles acted as the seed particles, and cataly...

Based on results obtained with leaf discs exposed to sulfate, leaves on cucurbit plants (Cucurbitapepo L. cv Small Sugar Punpkn and Cucuzs sativws cv Chipper) 1 to 2.5 weeks old have a low potential for H2S emission (less than 10 pkomoles per min per cm2 leaf area) in response to sulfate, whereas discs from most of the leaves on plants 3 to 4 weeks old emit H2S at a higher rate (50 to 150 picom...