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Article: Key to flowering plants' diversity.
- Article from:
- PTI - The Press Trust of India Ltd.
- Article date:
- July 30, 2008
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Key to flowering plants' diversity
New York, July 30 (PTI) A study by scientists in the United States may have found the key to the amazing diversity in the world's flowering plants, a mystery that has puzzled researchers from the time of Charles Darwin.
The findings, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the ability of flowering plants -- known as angiosperms -- to quickly and efficiently move sperm from pollen to egg through a part of the plant was the key to their evolutionary diversity.
"For a seeded plant to fertilize, pollen that lands on the flower must grow a tube to carry sperm to the egg. In ...