Summary:
Describes orchid mycorrhiza and examines its impact on plant fitness from germination through seedling stage. Provides an overview of the latest findings regarding OM as a factor that affects the recruitment (and subsequent infection) of orchid seeds as well as their ecological and/or substrate distributions.
1. INTRODUCTION
Orchidoid mycorrhizae (OM), as the name suggests, are characteristics of roughly the 20,000 species in the orchid family, and are not known in any other group. Orchids are unusual in that they pass through an obligate mycoparasitic stage in the course of normal development. Like other mycoparsitic plants, they have a number of structural specializations to this way of life, including their own distinctive form of mycorrhiza.
Orchid Seeds
Orchid seeds are dust-like, consisting of a tiny spherical embryo with no endosperm and a thin seed coat (Arditti & Ghani, 2000). As such, these minute seeds contain very small amounts of high-energy protein and lipid, and very little sugar (Arditti, 1979; Richardson et al., 1992). If the seeds are spread on a moist substratum, the undifferentiated embryos absorb water, swell slightly and may burst the testa, and.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. There are 3,047 words (approx.
10 pages at 300 words per page) in the full essay.
Read the rest of this Essay with our Orchid Mycorrhiza Access Pass.
