Abstract & Overview
9, price £70 ($140)For most plants the ability to survive desiccation is a crucial feature of several stages of their life-cycle.For many species this power is restricted to pollen grains and seeds, but a growing number of flowering plants, known as resurrection plants, have been identified as possessing mature vegetative tissues with the capacity to survive complete loss of tissue water.The central role of desiccation tolerance in the life-cycle of most plants highlights the importance of our understanding of this topic.This book attempts to give a detailed overview of all the known plant systems that exhibit this capability and to summarise our current understanding of the biological mechanisms underpinning the phenomenon.The book is divided into sections and consists of 12 submitted articles on a wide range of aspects of desiccation tolerance in plants with a summary of the articles as an introduction.The material is all of a consistent style and usually well self-referenced within and between articles. Part I:The introduction begins by presenting the reader with three states of organic material: living, dead and as a novelty 'still', this term being applied to living material in a state of suspended animation, possessing no metabolic activity.The evidence that plant material can actually acquire a 'still' state remains unpersuasive, but it is nevertheless a useful term in describing the quiescent nature of the dried plant.Next it details of all of the different plant tissues and structures that can tolerate desiccation are presented.In many ways the introduction serves as a long review article covering much of the topic in great detail.In fact the detail is too great since within the articles many points are repeated and this is really the fault of the introduction not of the articles themselves.Part II: The next three chapters look at the practical details of researching into the water content of plant material and the difficulties in measuring plant tissue water loss.This is an interesting and useful section and the book is enhanced by its presence.Part III: This section consisting of four chapters covers our current understanding of the physiology of desiccation tolerance in seeds, spores, pollen grains and vegetative tissues.In many respects this is the most interesting section of the book.Great detail is given on topics such as the proteins expressed in tissues during desiccation, particularly those