Economic Aspects Of Applied Plant Anatomy

CHAPTER 9

Economic aspects of applied
plant anatomy
Introduction
Many of the applied aspects of plant anatomy have been referred to in the
previous chapters, but some do not fit well into descriptive text. We have
therefore amplified some of these examples in this chapter and introduced
new ones drawn from experience at our laboratories. In writing this chapter, we have had to be veryselective – a whole book could be written on this
subject alone – but we hope that the following interesting examples will
serve to show the wide range of applications to which knowledge of plant
anatomy can be put. Anatomy is particularly useful in taxonomically identifying disassociated plant parts whether those parts be leaves, roots, stems,
fruits or seeds of living or fossil plants.Identification and classification
It is not always appreciated how important it is to be able to give the correct
name to a plant. Cytologists, geneticists, ecologists, plant breeders, chemists and anyone using plants for medicine, food, furniture, fabric or building material, or those conducting molecular research on plants, must be
able to identify their source material or they may not be able tocontinue
with their work. They would not know if further plant specimens or timbers were from the same species that they started with; their results and applications would be unpredictable; and the foundations for sound scientific
botanical research would be undermined. Identification depends on a stable, logical, usable and basically sound system of classification. At present,
many plants can beidentified adequately if all organs, for example flowers,
fruits, leaves, etc., are present. The traditional herbarium methods can then
be applied. However, there are very large numbers of plants which have
been classified using macromorphological features alone.

Systematic anatomy has a long history. From the early days of microscopy
it has fascinated people who saw first the wide range ofvariations in plant
anatomy, then began to recognize patterns of similarity, and eventually
realized that in many instances, plants sharing large numbers of anatomical
characters in common were probably closely related. This led to a series of
attempts to work through the plant kingdom in an orderly way, and record
what was present. For the angiosperms, in particular, this process led to
theproduction of series of books. The work was started in earnest on the dicotyledons, and when the first review was done the monocotyledons
were started. In the present day, the work on dicotyledons is being revised,
and completion of the first run through the monocotyledons is in progress.
There is an enormous number of papers on angiosperm anatomy, and
before setting out on new work it is sensible tofind out what has already
been published. In addition to the normal search engines, it is worth
looking at the Plant Micromorphology Bibliographic Database on the website of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This is important, because it goes
far back into the literature and is kept up to date. Quoting from the web
site ‘This is a unique bibliographic database maintained by the MicromorphologyGroup (Anatomy Section and Palynology Unit). It contains over
95,000 articles and is probably the most comprehensive computerized
index to higher plant micromorphology in existence. It covers most work
published on plant anatomy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
and is regularly updated with new literature. All aspects of angiosperm
and gymnosperm plant structure are covered, togetherwith vegetative
anatomy of pteridophytes. Common subject areas include ontogeny, ultrastructure, techniques, palaeobotany, embryology and seed anatomy. Internet searches are available free of charge for scientific purposes. (If the
searches are used in a publication, the “Micromorphology Group, Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew” should be acknowledged.) Contact: pa.database@
kew.org.

Economic...