Realizing pipe dreams – a detailed picture of vascular development

This special issue of Journal of Experimental Botany focuses on the developmental mechanisms required to generate plant vascular tissue. The focus is Arabidopsis, including the three models for initial patterning involving the interaction of auxin and cytokinin, and going on to look at expansion and differentiation into xylem and phloem. Bryophyte and tree models are also considered, as well as new techniques for analyzing the vasculature of mature plants.