Gravity as an obligatory factor in normal higher plant growth and development.

Gravity may influence different aspects of plant activity. The present report deals with two questions: gravity as an ecological factor determining spatial orientation of plant growth; and second, a possible requirement for gravity in the process of normal growth, morphogenesis and generative development of plants.

The development of seedling shoots under space flight conditions.

The assumption that gravity is the major factor in the process of formation of plant polar axis was used as a working basis for the experiment. It was hypothesized by Merkys in 1973 that the effect of gravity related to axial polarity is similar to the process which determines the lateral polarity of shoots under the influence of gravity. There are two possibilities: (i) the development and morphogenesis of shoots takes place directly under the influence of gravity, or (ii) this process, at least during the first growth phases, is determined in the course of the germ development in the seed.