Electronic Plant Anatomy

Synopsis

Electronic Plant Anatomy deals with the structural characteristics of mature and developing cells, tissues, and organs of seed plants. Anatomical structures of flowering plants are given special emphasis. It is intended to serve as a complete guide for beginning college/university students in plant anatomy, as well as a reference for advanced studies in various fields of plant biology. Plant anatomy is essentially concerned with the microscopic study of plant structures, and is generally focused on studies of seed plants. It is a very visual endeavor, requiring careful observations, understanding critical organizations, and developing a new vocabulary based on plant structure and development. The decision to develop this electronic resource was based on the observation that students require time that is often not available in the classroom or laboratory to adequately study microscopic preparations, and laboratory time might be better spent in developing new skills and techniques - possibly working with fresh materials. Textbooks on plant anatomy do not exist with the numbers of color illustrations needed to have a full appreciation of the subject. In addition, books cannot be easily modified as new materials and information become available. Furthermore, although textbooks may have considerable value to convey written and diagrammatic concepts, they lack interactivity. For all of these reasons and more, it was decided to develop subject matter relevant to the study of plant anatomy that can be quickly and easily accessed on a personal computer. The sequence of topics follows a conventional format, but also includes a general review of basic botany useful in studies of plant anatomy, an emphasis on microscopy, plant cell fine structure, selective staining, and image analysis - all of which are not often covered in traditional plant anatomy texts. In most cases outside of the Introduction to each unit of study, there is only a moderate amount of text-based material used to describe the illustrations. For more in-depth readings, the student is referred to any of several prominent texts on plant anatomy. There are approximately 240,000 existing species of angiosperms. As a consequence not all variations in structure can be expected to be covered in any introductory study of plant anatomy, nor are they even known. The emphasis of Electronic Plant Anatomy is on the vegetative and reproductive structures of angiosperms, although there are many places where gymnosperms are relevant for comparison. Non-seed plants are not emphasized here. It is expected that the student involved in this study will have had some introductory level course in botany or plant biology, but no extensive background is required.