Higher plants: Structural diversity of roots

Abstract

At the present time, the necessity of accumulating information about structure diversity of roots and root systems of the species existing on Earth has occurred, due to development both of theoretical basis and methods of preservation of plant biodiversity. There are few publications on structural features of plant roots in botanical literature. Moreover, comparative anatomical studies of roots of higher plants are far behind the researches on structure of shoots. Due to this fact, so far there is an opinion among botanists about the structure uniformity of roots of higher plants, and root systems. We are not going to consider all the causes for lag of comparative anatomical studies on higher plant roots in botany. This was done as long ago as in 1960s by (Comparative plant anatomy, Chapter 7. Root. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, NY. pp 94-101), American anatomist. Let us remind just of the main causes: • Weak knowledge about intraspecific variation of root structure • Technical difficulties in collecting root samples, the same as shoot samples, etc. • Deficiency of monographs on rhizology, with comparative anatomical studies of roots, similar to those of other plant organs We had taken into account these causes in our long-standing rhizological researches from 1974 to 2010.