In order to gain a working knowledge of horticulture, it is
necessary to understand the structure and function of plants and
the environmental factors that affect plant growth. In the greatly
diversified kingdom of plants, all flowering plants have certain
structures and functions in common. These similarities are the
basis for this chapter. Higher flowering plants are divided into
two groups, monocotyledons (monocots) and dicotyledons (dicots).
Although monocots and dicots are similar in many ways, differences
with respect to number of seed leaves, number of flower parts,
leaf vein pattern, and root structure exist. In addition,
physiological dissimilarities exist which result indifferent
responses to herbicides. |