Cellular aspects of growth have traditionally not been part of alpine plant ecology. It was perhaps taken as self-evident that once plants are in an active phase of life and sufficient carbon assimilates are present at meristems, plants would grow new cells. But this is not necessarily so. The formation of new cells involves a suite of synthetic steps, all potentially as sensitive, or even more so, to low temperature than the production of the raw materials for cell formation, photosynthates and amino acids in particular.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstraße 6, 4056, Basel, Switzerland

   Professor Dr. Christian Körner

Reprints and permissions

© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Policies and ethics