IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS Chapter Morphology of Flowering Plants Chapter Anatomy of Flowering Plants Chapter Structural Organisation in Animals K ATHERINE E SAU was born in Ukraine in . She studied agriculture in Russia and Germany and received her doctorate in in United States. She reported in her early publications that the curly top virus spreads through a plant via the food- conducting or phloem tissue. Dr Esau’s Plant Anatomy published in took a dynamic, developmental approach designed to enhance one’s understanding of plant structure and an enormous impact worldwide, literally bringing about a revival of the discipline.
The Anatomy of Seed Plants by Katherine Esau was published in . It was referred to as Webster’s of plant biology – it is encyclopediac. In she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, becoming the sixth woman to receive that honour. In addition to this prestigious award, she received the National Medal of Science from President George Bush in .
When Katherine Esau died in the year , Peter Raven, director of Anatomy and Morphology, Missouri Botanical Garden, remembered that she ‘absolutely dominated’ the field of plant biology even at the age of . Katherine Esau ( – ) The wide range in the structure of higher plants will never fail to fascinate us. Even though the angiosperms show such a large diversity in external structure or morphology , they are all characterised by presence of roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits. In chapters and , we talked about classification of plants based on morphological and other characteristics.
For any successful attempt at classification and at understanding any higher plant (or for that matter any living organism) we need to know standard technical terms and standard definitions. We also need to know about the possible variations in different parts, found as adaptations of the plants to their environment, e.g., adaptions to various habitats, for protection, climbing, storage, etc. If you pull out any weed you will see that all of them have roots, stems and leaves. They may be bearing flowers and fruits.
The underground part of the flowering plant is the root system while the portion above the ground forms the shoot system (Figure . ).