Regeneration of the Potato Shoot Apex

Abstract

THE apical meristem of the shoot in most species of plants is domed above the insertion of the leaf primordia, and its flanks slope symmetrically from the summit to the regions where differentiation is proceeding. When the distal cells in the apical meristem of ferns^1,2 or angiosperms^3,4 are punctured, regeneration of the flanks is promoted. From such experiments it has been concluded that physiological dominance within the apical growth field is an attribute of a small number of cells situated at the distal extremity of the apical meristem⁵. It is appropriate, therefore, to inquire as to the mechanism by which the form of the meristem is preserved. The persistence of such form is the earliest and most fundamental expression of morphogenesis in the shoot, the subsequent morphological developments being conditional on the continued orderly growth of the apical meristem.