Chapters authored
Ultrastructural Mechanisms of Aposporous Embryo Sac Initial Cell Appearance and Its Developmental Process in Gametophytic Apomicts of Guinea Grass (Panicum maximum)
Part of the book: The Transmission Electron Microscope
The Cytological Mechanism of Apospory in Paspalum notatum Analyzed by Differential Interference-Contrast Microscopy
Bahia grass (Paspalum notatum Flugge) is an important tropical forage grass and sets seed by apospory. I) To clarify the mechanisms of aposporous embryo sac initial cell (AIC) appearance and apomictic embryo sac formation, and II) to make it clear the mechanism of multiple embryo seed set a development in polyembryonic ovules, several apomictic and sexual varieties of bahia grass were studied cytologically and quantitatively by Nomarski differential interference-contrast microscopy. The results were I) there was no difference between sexual and apomicts to megasporogenesis; and then, the megaspore degenerated in apomicts; at the same time, AIC originated from nucellar tissue appeared and its numbers increased as the ovary grew before anthesis; II) at anthesis, the sac derived from AIC located in the micropylar end (first sac) were 92.5 to 100%, and those in the chalazal ends (other sacs) were 40.4 to 86.0% among the apomicts; the first sac divided dominantly and were 56 to 87% comparable to 0 to 1% of the other sacs at 4 days after anthesis; however, 4 to 17% of the other sacs also showed embryo formations but endosperm. In final, the first sac occupied the whole space of the ovule, in which the embryos in the other sacs coexisted.
Part of the book: Electron Microscopy