Mechanisms and variation in plant development: sorting the wood from the trees in Vermont

The biannual FASEB summer research conference ;Mechanisms in Plant Development' was recently held in Saxtons River, Vermont and was organised by Neelima Sinha and Cris Kuhlemeier. Although most of the work discussed at the meeting concentrated on developmental mechanisms and on studies in Arabidopsis and maize, the meeting also emphasised the importance of variation between species and the elaboration of a broader range of model systems.