About the Cover
COVER: In the majority of vascular plants, pinnately or palmately dissected leaves are formed through localized growth enhancement or suppression early in leaf develop-ment. In contrast, the complex leaf shapes of a few monocotyledonous species arise solely through programmed death of discrete patches of cells early in leaf expansion. Gunawardena et al. (pages 60-73) present a cytological characterization of the time course of events as programmed cell death remodels expanding leaves of the lace plant Aponogeton madagascariensis, providing evidence that this process requires unique developmental regulation. The image shows a low magnification view of a lace plant leaf at the perforation formation stage. At this stage, cells at the center of the perforation have died and there is a gradient in stages of cell death from the center of the perforation to the unaffected cells at the periphery.
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Copyright © 2008 by the American Society of Plant Biologists
