Hormones - Research Article from Macmillan Science Library: Plant Sciences

This encyclopedia article consists of approximately 8 pages of information about Hormones.

Hormones - Research Article from Macmillan Science Library: Plant Sciences

This encyclopedia article consists of approximately 8 pages of information about Hormones.
This section contains 2,136 words
(approx. 8 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Hormones Encyclopedia Article

Hormones are small molecules that are released by one part of a plant to influence another part. The principal plant growth hormones are the auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, abscisic acid, and ethylene. Plants use these hormones to cause cells to elongate, divide, become specialized, and separate from each other, and help coordinate the development of the entire plant. Not only are the plant hormones small in molecular weight, they are also active in the plant in very small amounts, a fact that made their isolation and identification difficult.

The first plant growth hormones discovered were the auxins. (The term auxin is derived from a Greek word meaning "to grow.") The best known and most widely distributed hormone in this class is indole-3-acetic acid. Fritz W. Went, whose pioneering and ingenious research in 1928 opened the field of plant hormones, reported that auxins were involved in the control of the...

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This section contains 2,136 words
(approx. 8 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Hormones Encyclopedia Article
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Hormones from Macmillan. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.