Plant Hormones and Plant Development

Polarity, phototropism, and the discovery of auxin. The action of light in phototropism. The chemical nature of endogenous auxin. Other developmental effects of auxin. The biochemical basis of auxin action. Leaf and bud development and cytokinins. Flowering hormones and gibberellins. Senescence, Abscission, and abscisic acid. Movement of hormones. Roots and hormones. Overview.

From the Preface:

My intention in writing this book is to describe the hormones of vascular plants and to discuss the ways in which hormones control and coordinate vascular plant development. The emphasis is on physiology and anatomy, the areas of my training and experience. I wrote the book for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students of biology.

This book exemplifies the approach and expands the coverage of an upper-class course that I have taught for several years at Princeton University. The approach is critical, developmental, and organismic. The success of this course with our college students led me to think that the approach might be useful to others also, particularly since no such textbook was available in the field of plant hormones. I was happy, therefore, to accept the invitation of Cambridge University Press to write such a book. . .

The basic plan of each chapter is to describe and discuss a major developmental problem and the progress that hormonal physiologists have made in understanding it, followed by a discussion of pertinent techniques. Critical evaluation of techniques is inextricably bound up with progress in the field. Knowledge of the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of a given technique are essential both for further progress in the field of hormonal physiology and for understanding the difficulties earlier investigators encountered.