Editorial: From Meristems to Floral Diversity: Developmental Options and Constraints

Floral and Vegetative Morphogenesis in California Poppy (Eschscholzia californicaCham.)

For studies of the evolution of development in angiosperms, early‐diverging eudicot taxa are of particular interest for comparisons with established core eudicot model plants, such as Arabidopsis. Here we provide a detailed description of shoot and floral development of the basal eudicot California poppy (Eschscholzia californica). Rosette formation in the vegetative phase is accompanied by increased leaf complexity and shoot apex size. The flowering phase is characterized by internode elongation, formation of dissected cauline leaves, terminal flowers, and basipetal inflorescence branching. For developing flowers and fruits, we have defined 14 stages according to important landmark events,…

Highly Efficient Virus-induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica): An Evaluation of VIGS as a Strategy to Obtain Functional Data from Non-model Plants

†Background and Aims Eschscholzia californica (California poppy) is an emerging model plant for ‘evo‐devo’ studies from the basal eudicot clade of Papaveraceae. California poppy has a relatively small genome, a short life cycle and, most importantly, it is amenable for transformation. However, since this transformation protocol is time consuming, virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) was evaluated as a fast method to obtain functional data for California poppy genes. †Methods Commercially available California poppy plants were infiltrated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens carrying the tobacco rattle virus plasmids pTRV1 and pTRV2. pTRV2 contained part of the eschscholzia Phytoene Desaturase (EcP…