Seeds: Time Capsules of Life.SEEDS: Time Capsules of Life ROB KESSELER AND WOLFGANG STUPPY Plants have evolved over the past 600 million years to propagate all corners of Earth. Much of this capacity stems from the attributes of seeds. They're remarkable because they lie dormant Verb 1. lie dormant - be inactive, as if asleep; "His work lay dormant for many years" , waiting for the right conditions under which to sprout and produce the next generation. In this visually arresting book, Kesseler, an artist, and Stuppy, a seed morphologist, pay homage to the seed and its resilience. Seeds themselves come in diverse forms, from the 20-kilogram Seychelles nut to the feather-light dandelion dandelion [Eng. form of Fr.,=lion's tooth], any plant of the genus Taraxacum of the family Asteraceae (aster family), perennial herbs of wide distribution in temperate regions. parachute. The authors review seed evolution and sexual reproduction sexual reproduction n. Reproduction by the union of male and female gametes to form a zygote. Also called syngenesis. , the coevolution co·ev·o·lu·tion n. The evolution of two or more interdependent species, each adapting to changes in the other. It occurs, for example, between predators and prey and between insects and the flowers that they pollinate. of plants and pollinating insects, and the fertilization techniques of angiosperms. Throughout, brilliant photos and electron micrographs provide up-close images of intricate structures. Kesseler also looks at how seed and plant structures are reflected in architecture, and he details how the images in this book were created. Firefly firefly or lightning bug, small, luminescent, carnivorous beetle of the family Lampyridae. Fireflies are well represented in temperate regions, although the majority of species are tropical and subtropical. , 2006, 264 p., color images, hardcover, $60.00. |
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