Arabidopsis early-flowering mutants reveal multiple levels of regulation in the vegetative-to-floral transition

The isolation and characterization of flowering time mutants should further the understanding of the developmental pathways that regulate the transition to reproductive development. Because plant development is a sequential and continuous process, the genetic analysis of floral initiation is likely to benefit from the analysis of mutations that cause pleiotropic phenotypes. This review focus on early-flowering mutants of Arabidopsis that display additional phenotypes in either inflorescence development or light perception, and discusses the possibility that genes controlling early flower development are regulated by environmentally responsive genetic pathways.