About the Cover
On the Cover: The ephemeral beauty of the morning glory flower invites us to reflect more deeply on the splendor and brevity of all life, including our own. Perhaps this thought underlay Walt Whitman's sentiment in Song of Myself that "a morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books." Plant physiologists, too, have turned to morning glory flowers to learn more about two of life's grand themes
reproduction and death. The corolla of Ipomoea has served as a model system for studying senescence, whereas another morning glory, Pharbitis nil, has been the subject of many classical studies concerning floral induction. We chose Pharbitis for this month's cover as a humbling reminder that despite the many advances of the last 25 years that are reviewed in this 75th Anniversary Issue, there still are challenges that lie ahead. Indeed, the nature of the floral stimulus remains as elusive as ever. Identifying it remains one of the many challenges for the next 25 years.
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Copyright © 2008 by the American Society of Plant Biologists
