Flowering Plants

Structure and Industrial Products

Aisha S. Khan

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119262770
• eBook ISBN: 9781119262787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Botany
• Index: Biological Sciences

Angiosperms, or flowering plants, are one of the most diverse plant groups on the planet, and they offer tremendous resources for a broad range of industries. Flowering Plants examines the anatomy and morphology of angiosperms with a focus on relating their metabolic activities to products for the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and textile industries.

This up-to-date reference provides a thorough understanding of plant structure and chemical and molecular processes found in angiosperms. It covers many important topics on applied botany, and therefore, can also be used as a textbook for students of related fields. It details the latest research in the field, along with areas in need of further study, for students, researchers, and professionals working in industry. The book takes advantage of technological innovations to showcase a range of advanced techniques for studying plant structure and metabolites, such as cryo-electron microscopy, ultramicroscopy, x-ray crystallography, spectroscopy, and chromatography. Filled with helpful illustrations, diagrams, and flowcharts to aid comprehension, Flowering Plants offers readers the morphological, anatomic, and molecular knowledge about angiosperms they need for a range of industrial applications.

1
An Introduction to Flowering Plants: Monocots and Eudicots

There is no doubt about it that plants are main producers of ecosystem and important in every aspect of our daily lives. Many products which are used in food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics, perfumery, coffee, tea and beverage industries are in fact derived from plants. They are biosynthesized in different parts of plants and are known as natural products or secondary metabolites. Many of these compounds are defensive in nature which are produced during primary metabolic activities in plants. Many pigments in flowering plants are also secondary metabolites which are crucial for their pollination. Secondary metabolites include alkaloids, flavonoids, betalains, glycosides, tannins, terpenoids and saponins. They will be introduced in the next chapter.

This book deals with flowering plants, that is, angiosperms as they make one of the abundant group of plants of economic importance. However, before discussing major products of angiosperms, their biosynthesis and applications, it is important to discuss what are angiosperms? How did they evolve? What is their body organization and what kind of cells they have? So in the next section, a brief introduction of angiosperms and their classification is discussed.

1.1 An Introduction to Major Group of Angiosperms: Monocots, Eudicots and Basal Angiosperms

All plants are considered to be a group of related organisms which are capable to synthesize their own sugars during photosynthesis, possess the cell wall, and generally with the differentiation of their bodies in roots, stems, leaves, flowers or flower‐ like structures. But recent trends in molecular phylogenetics have shown that they are not as much closely related as thought before. In fact, plants can be best described as ‘a group of different organisms which evolved independently during course of evolution and share similar characteristics like ability to synthesize their own food within their chloroplasts, have chlorophyll a as a necessary photosynthetic pigment and possess the cell wall which largely comprises of cellulose'. Their body is differentiated in vegetative and reproductive organs (spore or seed‐producing structures) and are therefore classified in one kingdom plantae. Division within kingdom plantae is based either on the presence or absence of vascular tissues (xylem and phloem) or spore‐producing structures. Bryophytes like liverworts, hornworts and mosses are non‐vascular spore producing plants while pteridophytes are vascular plants which produce spore, for example, ferns, horsetails and clubmossses. Other two major groups are seed‐producing plants, that is, gymnosperms which produce seeds which are not enclosed within their ovaries, and angiosperms or flowering plants, in which seeds develop within carpels and are covered by ovary wall.

Angiosperms also known as flowering plants are the largest monophyletic group of seed producing plants which have evolved many efficient ways of survival over the period of time. They are unique from other group of plants due to the development of endosperm (nutritive tissue around embryo within seeds), flowers with carpels and stamens having two pairs of pollen sacs and phloem for transportation of sugars. Their fossils are over 135 million years old. Angiosperms are considered to be close relatives of living gymnosperms but some recent evidence suggested that seed ferns represent sister group to angiosperms. They are relatively evolved group of plants as compared with gymnosperms as they possess several mechanisms which ensure successful asexual and sexual reproduction, one of the main reason which makes them one of the abundant group of seed plants.

Although monocots (angiosperms with one cotyledons) and dicots (angiosperms with two cotyledons) are referred as two main groups of angiosperms but modern classification which is based on molecular evidences have characterized angiosperms as core and basal angiosperms according to their monophyletic origin (descendants of common ancestors) and facts provided by molecular data including studies from DNA sequences from chloroplasts gene rbcL. Therefore, modern system of plant taxonomy, that is, Angiosperms Phylogeny Group (APG) system is a molecular‐based systematics which retains order and families of Linnean systems and includes groups which are monophyletic. APG I was published in 1998 which was followed by APG II in 2003 (Chase et al., 2003) and APG III in 2009 (Bremer et al., 2009) and then APG IV in 2016. However, further development in molecular techniques, advancement in techniques related to metabolomics and proteomics is exploring the molecular phylogenetics which will form foundation of evidence‐based classification of flowering plants.

Evolutionary evidences suggest that basal angiosperms which are characterized by absence of xylem vessels are primitive, however, some recent phylogenetic analysis reported that Amborella trichopoda is sister to all extant angiosperms and is at the base of angiosperms phylogenetic tree. They are composed of only few species which include many aquatic plants like water lilies (Figure 1.1), Amborella and star anise. Core angiosperms are represented by monocots and core eudicots. They include three major groups including monocots, eudicots and magnoliids, and the latter group was once considered to be dicots but now it is placed in a separate group. Important magnoliids include plants like avocado, black pepper, magnolia, nut‐meg, bay leaf, tuliptree or yellow poplar.

Figure 1.1 (a‐b) Basal angiosperms, (a) Nymphaea alba from family Nymphaeaceae, (b) Magnolia sp. is another bas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An Introduction to Flowering Plants
• 2 An Introduction to Angiosperm Natural Products
• 3 Plant Tissues Organization of Angiosperms
• 4 Floral Cell Biology and Diversity in Floral Cells
• 5 Signaling During Sexual Reproduction in Angiosperms
• 6 Physiologically Active Metabolic Pathways in Floral Cells
• 7 Anthocyanins
• 8 Carotenoids: Introduction, Classification and Industrial Uses
• 9 Alkaloids Biosynthesis, Translocation and Industrial Products
• 10 Nectaries, Carnations and Ornamental Hybrid Flowers in Floriculture
• 11 Floral Essential Oils: Biosynthesis, Classification and Commercial Applications
• 12 Aromatic Molecules From Flowers in Perfume and Cosmetic Industries
• Glossary
• Index
• End User License Agreement