Chinese botany: science and civilisation in china

Plant tissue culture is widely used in both primary and applied science. Applications range from plant development studies to functional gene studies, crop improvement, commercial micropropagation, virus elimination, and conservation of rare species.

Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.

The diverse plant life on Earth—consisting of nearly 400,000 species—can be divided into three broad categories based on biological characteristics: nonvascular, seedless vascular, and seed plants.

Human civilization relies on biodiversity in many ways. Sudden changes in species biodiversity result in environmental changes that can modify weather patterns and therefore human civilizations.

The cultivation of environmental microorganisms has long been hindered by the inability to replicate complex native conditions in vitro. The isolation chip (iChip) addresses this limitation by facilitating the growth of previously uncultivable microorganisms through in situ incubation. Designed for high-throughput microbial cultivation, the iChip comprises hundreds of microchambers, each capable of housing a single microbial cell. These microchambers are loaded with a mixture of molten agar and...

Plants are multicellular eukaryotes with tissue systems made of various cell types that carry out specific functions. Different tissues work together to perform a unique function and form an organ. Organs working together form organ systems. Vascular plants have two distinct organ systems: a shoot system and a root system. The shoot system consists of two portions: the vegetative (non-reproductive) parts of the plant, such as the leaves and the stems, and the reproductive parts of the plant,...