Abstract
Sexual reproduction and early development of flowering plants have been major issues in plant morphology. These processes occur inside the pistil tissue, enclosed by many cell layers. Sophisticated techniques are required to study these processes. Due to difficulties associated with observation of these processes, molecular mechanisms remained unknown for many years. The molecular mechanisms, however, began to be solved recently by various achievements involving fluorescent makers for cells in these processes, detailed transcriptome analyses, and in vitro systems. Japanese young researchers also contributed to advances of this filed. In the last annual meeting of the Botanical Society of Japan, we had a joint symposium with the Japanese Society of Plant Morphology. Young researchers were invited to the symposium and contributed articles to this issue. They reviewed frontiers in sexual reproduction and early development of flowering plants.
