Subject: 10 things I don't know
From: [email-masked] (Richard Winder)
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 18:35:38 GMT
Newsgroups: bionet.plants

Here are ten things I don't (fully) know about plants- some trivial, some 
you can probably at least partly answer.  I applaud the approach by the 
way- there is no more effective way to spark a student's interest in science
than to tell the student what we *don't* know.  They usually take it as
a challenge.

1. When plant cells differentiate, how do they sort themselves out from
their neighbors?

2. How are floral meristems initiated?

3. How can one seed from an exotic origin have such a robust genome that
it can become a vast weed community?

4. Why does Phragmites put so much energy into producing those large, fancy,
mostly sterile panicles?

5. How do endophytic microbes which stimulate plant growth affect competition?

6. If we were choosing plants to terraform a planet, which ones would be
the best choices?

7. Is our use of desirable and necessary plant products/produce sustainable
well into the next millenium?

8. Does biodiversity refer to the inherent homestatic stability of a diverse
ecosystem, or to the degree of fragile opportunism?

9. What *is* the largest organism in the plant world, anyway? (in terms of
connected, *living* biomass, not dead wood).

10. Where do those little stakes go that I put in my greenhouse pots?  The
same place as ball-point pens?		-RSW

  RICHARD WINDER                    Title: Research Scientist
  Canadian Forest Service           Phone: (604) 363-0773
  Victoria, B.C.                    Internet: [email-masked]