Interest in the structure and function of physical biological networks has spurred the development of a number of theoretical models that predict optimal network structures across a broad array of taxonomic groups, from mammals to plants. In many cases, direct tests of predicted network structure are impossible given the lack of suitable empirical methods to quantify physical network geometry w...

In most dicotyledonous plants, vascular tissues in the leaf have a reticulate venation pattern. We have isolated and characterized an Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutant defective in the vascular network defective mutant, van3. van3 mutants show a discontinuous vascular pattern, and VAN3 is known to encode an ADP-ribosylation-factor-GTPase-activating protein that regulates membrane traffi...

The genus Antispila Hübner, [1825] is newly recorded from mainland China. Antispila sinensissp. n., the first formally named Heliozelidae species in mainland China, is described. The host plant of the new species, Cornus walteri Wangerin (Cornaceae), is widespread through east Asia and is used as a shade tree in city parks in Jinan City, where the moth causes damage to foliage. Morphological an...

The size and shape of plant leaves change with growth, and an accurate description of leaf shape is crucial for describing plant morphogenesis and development. Bilateral symmetry, which has been widely observed but poorly examined, occurs in both dicot and monocot leaves, including all nominated bamboo species (approximately 1,300 species), of which at least 500 are found in China. Although the...

Interest in the structure and function of physical biological networks has spurred the development of a number of theoretical models that predict optimal network structures across a broad array of taxonomic groups, from mammals to plants. In many cases, direct tests of predicted network structure are impossible given the lack of suitable empirical methods to quantify physical network geometry w...

Recent studies have demonstrated significant correlations between stem and leaf hydraulic properties when comparing across species within ecological communities. This implies that these traits are co-evolving, but there have been few studies addressing plant water relations within an explicitly evolutionary framework. This study tests for correlated evolution among a suite of plant water-use tr...

In this paper, a procedure for segmenting and classifying scanned legume leaves based only on the analysis of their veins is proposed (leaf shape, size, texture and color are discarded). Three legume species are studied, namely soybean, red and white beans. The leaf images are acquired using a standard scanner. The segmentation is performed using the unconstrained hit-or-miss transform and adap...

A new species in the Lauraceae, Cinnamomum bladenense S.W. Brewer & G.L. Stott, is described from the Bladen Nature Reserve in southern Belize. The new species is similar to Cinnamomum brenesii (Standl.) Kosterm., from which it differs by its much smaller, narrowly-campanulate flowers, its inner tepals glabrous abaxially, its shorter petioles, its minutely sericeous younger twigs, and its abaxi...

Although leaf size is one of the most responsive plant traits to environmental change, the functional benefits of large versus small leaves remain unclear. We hypothesized that modification of leaf size within species resulting from differences in irradiance can allow leaves to acclimate to different photosynthetic or evaporative conditions while maintaining an efficient balance between hydraul...

This paper deals with the pharmacognosy of Hyptis suaveolens leaf including its morphological, anatomical, chemical constituents and powder analysis. Contrary to earlier reports, the leaves are amphistomatic. Stomata are diacytic, a few being isotricytic and ansiotricytic. Four types of trichomes have been noted. The venation is semicraspidodromous. Midrib consists of one large moon shaped and ...