Plant Bodies: How Plant Structures Contribute to Our Comprehension of Their Life-History Strategy

The book presents in an accessible form how the knowledge of the shapes of the plant body contributed and contributes to the understanding of plant life strategies. It attempts to answer the questions: what are the ecological functions of plant traits such as height, shoot cyclicity or adventitious branching from roots in the daily life of a plant and/or how is the ecological function of a plant affected by its morphology and architecture. The book is the first attempt to bring together traditional botanical knowledge about plant morphology and architecture with contemporary functional ecology. In addition to the plants themselves, it also deals with those who contributed to the knowledge of the ecological function of plant forms and brings their brief medallions. The book is intended for all those who like plants, students and professional botanists.