Bernier G
Symp Soc Exp Biol. 1986;40:257-86.
The field of flowering has been characterized by simplistic ideas, as exemplified by the attempts to classify plants on the basis of the kinds of environmental factors required for their transition to flower initiation and the claims that the process of flower formation in photoperiodic and cold-requiring plants is independent of correlative influences from various organs, e.g. the roots. Other examples of this simplified picture are the concept of a specific leaf-generated floral hormone and floral inhibitor and the search at the level of the meristem of a specific evocational event which would set in motion the whole sequence of other events and commit the meristem to flower initiation. Finally, there is the belief that because flower morphology is basis to species classification the morphogenesis of flowers is a rather invariable process. All these ideas are essentially erroneous and it is shown that all aspects of the flowering process are much more flexible than is usually believed. Floral induction may be completed by many, if not all, plants in several alternative sets of environmental factors. At least in some plants, the alternative inductive factors are perceived by different organs, indicating that these factors affect most probably entirely different processes. Thus, at induction, plasticity is extremely large and the fate of any shoot meristem appears to be controlled by a complex and flexible array of promoters and inhibitors arising from all plant parts. At meristem evocation, there are a number of events which are fundamentally the same in many plants, but so far no single initial critical event has been found. The various evocational changes appear to form sets of interconnected systems and this complex network seems to embody some plasticity since it has been possible to suppress experimentally some of the most universal evocational events or alter their temporal order without impairing evocation itself. At later stages, it has been observed that all the morphological characters of inflorescences and flowers may be experimentally altered. However, if the occasional and extreme malformations (monstrosities) caused by some growth substances are excluded, morphogenetic processes do not appear flexible to the point that the reproductive structures of one species are transformed into those of a taxonomically unrelated species. Thus, despite the fact that these processes are never absolutely fixed, plasticity at morphogenesis appears less than that at induction.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
开花领域一直存在一些过于简单化的观点，例如试图根据植物进入花诱导所需的环境因素种类对植物进行分类，以及声称光周期植物和需要低温的植物中花形成过程独立于来自各个器官（如根）的相关影响。这种简化观点的其他例子包括特定叶源花激素和花抑制剂的概念，以及在分生组织水平上寻找特定的诱发事件，该事件将启动其他一系列事件并使分生组织进入花诱导状态。最后，有一种观点认为，由于花的形态是物种分类的基础，花的形态发生是一个相当不变的过程。所有这些观点本质上都是错误的，并且表明开花过程的所有方面都比通常认为的更加灵活。许多（如果不是所有）植物可以在几种不同的环境因素组合中完成花诱导。至少在某些植物中，不同的器官可以感知替代诱导因素，这表明这些因素很可能影响完全不同的过程。因此，在诱导阶段，可塑性极大，任何茎尖分生组织的命运似乎都由来自植物各个部分的一系列复杂而灵活的促进因子和抑制因子控制。在分生组织诱发阶段，许多植物中存在一些基本相同的事件，但到目前为止尚未发现单一的初始关键事件。各种诱发变化似乎形成了相互关联的系统组，并且这个复杂的网络似乎体现了一些可塑性，因为已经能够通过实验抑制一些最普遍的诱发事件或改变它们的时间顺序而不损害诱发本身。在后期阶段，已经观察到花序和花的所有形态特征都可以通过实验改变。然而，如果排除由某些生长物质引起的偶尔和极端畸形（ monstrosities ），形态发生过程似乎并不灵活到将一个物种的生殖结构转变为分类学上无关物种的生殖结构的程度。因此，尽管这些过程从来都不是绝对固定的，但形态发生阶段的可塑性似乎小于诱导阶段。（摘要截选至400字）
