CELL WALL CONFORMATION IN DRY SEEDS IN RELATION TO THE PRESERVATION OF STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY DURING DESICCATION
1982; Wiley; Volume: 69; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/j.1537-2197.1982.tb13418.x
ISSN1537-2197
AutoresMary Alice Webb, Howard J. Arnott,
Tópico(s)Plant responses to elevated CO2
ResumoInternal tissues of mature air‐dry seeds, prepared anhydrously for observation with the scanning electron microscope, exhibit cell wall structure which is different from that observed in aqueously fixed (hydrated) seed tissues. In a wide range of dry seeds observed (six members of the Cucurbitaceae, two species of Yucca, Hibiscus esculentus, Phaseolus vulgaris , and Helianthus annuus ) cell walls exhibit a unique collapsed structure. The manner of cell wall collapse is characteristic for a given species and ranges from a highly regular folding pattern in the Cucurbitaceae to random wrinkling of the walls in Hibiscus. Evidence suggests that the regular patterns of wall folding may result from a mechanism located in the cell wall. Wall collapse in dry seeds is explained as a means of coordinating wall and protoplasmic shrinkage during desiccation and is thought to be essential for preserving the structural integrity of the tissue by conserving intercellular communication and plasmalemma‐cell wall association. Implications of these observations may relate to retention of viability in seeds.
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