XVI International Botanical Congess

The developmental origin of endosperm from double fertilization was discovered a century ago. For much of the twentieth century however, specific events related to the evolutionary origin of the endosperm of flowering plants remained a mystery. Advances in phylogenetic reconstruction of seed plant relationships, genetic theory associated with kin selection, and comparative study of the reproductive biology of nonflowering seed plants and basal angiosperms have advanced our understanding of the evolutionary events associated with the origin of double fertilization and endosperm. Based on current hypotheses for the origin and evolutionary homology of endosperm it is now possible to formulate explicit predictions about the suite of developmental processes that were modified to give rise to this unique embryo-nourishing structure of angiosperms.