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How does a flower come to be?

There are around 369,000 known flowering plant species on Earth today, by far the most numerous group of plants living on Earth by an order of magnitude. The next largest group is the ~15,000 species of bryophytes. Humans are 100% reliant on flowering plants for food, medicines, wood, air, culture, and our environment.

What makes a plant decide to flower?
There is a network of genes at the center of when a plant flowers. Much of what we know is from studying the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana. As more plant genomes are sequenced, genes similar to those in Arabidopsis have been found. Part of the answer to the astonishing diversity of plants is that while the blueprint is similar, many different shapes can be created. That blueprint has also had 140 million years of copying itself with slight changes occurring each time molded by specific environments. As Dr. Caroline Dean, Professor at the John Innes Centre– recently named a Dame of the British Empire– told me by email about some specific components of the flower time program:

“There are MADS box proteins and FT homologues across all species studied so far – but they appear to function in somewhat different ways“.

The blooming vote
As multicellular, complex organisms, flowering is a systemic decision for plants. Plant cells communicate with neighboring cells and through mobile signals such as proteins, RNA, small molecule hormones to other parts of the plant. Recent research has started exploring what flowering time genes are expressed in roots, concluding that roots seem to contribute to the flowering decision by communicating sugar/nutrition status.

Read the full blog by Ian Street, Research Associate at Dartmouth College, here.
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