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An introductory discussion of basic chromosome structure andfunction preceeds the main text on the application ofcytogenetic approaches to the analysis of the manipulationof both the genetic make-up and the genetic transmissionsystem of plant breeding material.

In most of the cases, backcross or modified backcross methods have been followed to utilize wild species, and thus numerous types of resistance and other economical attributes have been transferred in the recurrent parents.

The presentation is organized around the development of breeding from single-to multiple-option plans, from single to multiple traits, from single to mUltiple environ ments, and from single to multiple populations.

The first part starts with an evaluation of the significance of the different pollination mechanisms for plant breeding and crop produc tion, describes modes of reproduction in higher plants and discusses ecology and dynamics of pollination.

Recently three important conclusions have been derived (Davidson and Britten, 1979) which help to pose the problem in a new way: 1) Only a small part of single copy sequences of DNA is represented in nuclear RNA of a given type of cell or tissue: 10% to 20% in sea urchin embryos, 11 % in rat liver, 4% to 6% in Drosophila cell culture, etc.

When trying to solicit authors for this book it became apparent that the causal factors for heterosis at the physiological and biochemical level are today almost as obscure as they were 30 years ago.

Although only about 3 years have passed since the preparation of the original manuscript of this book for the Russian edition, the number of successful experiments on somatic hybridization of higher plants has doubled.

A century of research on heterostylous plants has passedsince the publication of Charles Darwin's book "TheDifferent Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species" in1877 summarizing his extensive observations and experimentson these complex breeding systems involving geneticpolymorphisms of floral sex organs.

Because of the great variety of problems which this genus presents to biologists, Oenothera belongs to the best-known genera of plants not used economically. It is further of great value for all those whose research topics are based on genetics, such as developmental and evolutionary biology.

In late 1971 we were involved in a study of the interaction of radiation with matter and were trying to use measurements of radiation fluorescence in biological molecules to indicate how radiation affected living cells.

The Predominance of species exhibiting genic male sterility and of species crosses exhibiting gene-cytoplasmic male sterility is due to the fact that for the male sterility expression in the former, mutation of nuclear genes is required, but in the latter, mutations of both nuclear and cytoplasmic genes are necessary.