BACKGROUND AND AIMS The Diervilla and Lonicera clades are members of the family Caprifoliaceae (Dipsacales sensu Donoghue et al., 2001, Harvard Papers in Botany 6: 459-479). So far, the intergeneric relationships of the Lonicera clade and the systematic position of Heptacodium remain equivocal. By studying fruit and seed morphology and anatomy, an attempt is made to clarify these issues. In add...

The role of water erosion on seed loss and on plant establishment and distribution is unknown on the Chinese Loess Plateau, which suffers serious soil erosion. The seed susceptibility of 16 local species to removal by water erosion from loess slopes was determined by rainfall simulation experiments. The experiments were performed on slopes with gradients of 10°, 15°, 20° and 25° for a 60-min du...

In gynodioecious plants, seed offspring from hermaphrodites often perform less well than those from females. This lower performance sometimes can be attributed to inbreeding by hermaphrodites or to relatively greater provisioning of individual seeds by females. However, these hypotheses are not explanatory when only outcrossing occurs and when individual seeds of the two morphs are equally well...

Starch microparticles (SM) were prepared by delivering ethanol as the precipitant into a starch paste solution dropwise. Chemically modified starch microparticles (CSM) were fabricated by a reaction with malic acid using the dry-preparation technique. Composites were prepared using CSM and various cellulose materials as fillers within glycerol plasticized– corn starch matrix through the casting...

Silver nanorods (Ag NR) have been successfully synthesized by wet chemical method (seed-mediated growth) utilizing 10 nm silver nanospheres as a seed material and subsequent reduction of silver precursor with a weak reducing agent (ascorbic acid) along with a directing surfactant. The effect of synthesis temperature on the structure, morphology, composition and optical properties were investiga...

We report the influence of zinc oxide (ZnO) seed layers on the performance of ZnO-based memristive devices fabricated using an electrodeposition approach. The memristive element is based on a sandwich structure using Ag and Pt electrodes. The ZnO seed layer is employed to tune the morphology of the electrodeposited ZnO films in order to increase the grain boundary density as well as construct h...

Seed shape in the model legumes Lotus japonicus and Medicago truncatula is described. Based in previous work with Arabidopsis, the outline of the longitudinal sections of seeds is compared with a cardioid curve. L. japonicus seeds adjust well to an unmodified cardioid, whereas accurate adjustment in M. truncatula is obtained by the simple transformation of scaling the vertical axis by a factor ...

The impact of various substrates and zinc oxide (ZnO) ultra thin seed layers prepared by atomic layer deposition on the geometric morphology of subsequent ZnO nanowire arrays (NWs) fabricated by the hydrothermal method was investigated. The investigated substrates included B-doped ZnO films, indium tin oxide films, single crystal silicon (111), and glass sheets. Scanning electron microscopy and...

It is well known that graphene (G) induces nanotoxicity towards living organisms. Here, a novel and biocompatible hydrated graphene ribbon (HGR) unexpectedly promoted aged (two years) seed germination. HGR formed at the normal temperature and pressure (120 days hydration), presented 17.1% oxygen, 0.9% nitrogen groups, disorder-layer structure, with 0.38 nm thickness ribbon morphology. Interesti...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Triassic and Jurassic fossils record structural changes in conifer seed cones through time, provide the earliest evidence for crown-group conifer clades, and further clarify sister-group relationships of modern conifer families. A new and distinct seed-cone from the Isle of Skye in western Scotland provides the oldest detailed evidence for the ancestral morphology of the ph...