"Growth Patterns in Vascular Plants organizes the processes of plant growth into four fundamental categories: primary growth, secondary growth, reproductive growth, and phylogenetic development. In sections devoted to each of these processes, a multidisciplinary panel of experts assembled by editor Muhammad Iqbal surveys the advances made in understanding plant growth in recent decades. Contributors include biochemists, ecophysiologists, molecular biologists, and other specialists, in addition to anatomists and morphologists. Some of the topics covered are root growth and gravitropism, leaf development and the influence of light, growth of laticifers, tracheary elements in parasitic plants, thickening in pteridophytes and monocotyledons, adaptive anatomy of lianas, factors controlling flower, gametophyte, and embryo development, and plant growth and the evolution of seed plants."--BOOK JACKET. "The chapters, generously illustrated with photographs and drawings, have been carefully organized to reveal the investigative trends in the various disciplines. The book provides a starting point for further advances in our understanding of plant growth."--BOOK JACKET.