Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2005, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (增刊): 118-127.

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Responses of the Morphological and Anatomical Structure of the Plant Leaf to Environmental Change

1,2 LI Fang-Lan 1BAO Wei-Kai   

    1. 1 (Chengdu Institute of Biology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041) 
    2. 2 (Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039)
  • Received:2004-05-28 Revised:2004-10-08 Online:2005-08-10 Published:2005-08-10

Abstract: In the evolution of plants, the leaf is more sensitive and plastic to environmental change than other organs; environment change usually results in morphological and anatomical responses of the leaf, including morphology (length, width, thickness), surface (stomata, epidermis, attachment) and mesophyll (palisade, spongy, intercellur space, sclerified, vein). This review describes the above-mentioned adaptive characters of terrestrial plant leaves to alterations in environmental factors such as water, temperature, light and CO2 concentration and combined effects, and analyzes recent research, then indicates the emphasis and direction of future study.

Key words: Plant leaf, Environmental change, Morphological and anatomical structure, Combined effect, Adaptability