Category: Education
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How grasses supercharged energy storage via a unique starch biosynthetic pathway
Plants produce glucose using carbon dioxide and water from the environment. This glucose is then used to power cell metabolism and keep plants alive. However, glucose is an osmotically active material, and is hard to store, so plants link together glucose molecules to form a carbohydrate called starch. Starch is compact and insoluble, and is…
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Defining Grasses: The Amazing Awns of Grasses
If one were in the habit of identifying grasses, then the presence of visible and distinctive structures on the spikelets would be one way to ease the pain of such an endeavor. Fortunately, many grasses have long projections from these reproductive structures that go a long way towards helping the observer. These so-called awns are…
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Defining Grasses: The Remarkable and Unique Caryopsis and Embryo of Grasses
Thanks to a reader who corrected my incomplete definition of the carpel! What constitutes the family Poaceae? How do we delineate them from other plants? Do the members of this plant family have certain features that are unique to the group and are found nowhere else in the plant kingdom? At first glance, many might…