Endo-, Para-, and Ecodormancy: Physiological Terminology and Classification for Dormancy Research

Plant dormancy has a major impact on the cultivation of plants, influencing such processes as seed germination, flowering, and vegetative growth. The diversity of plant tissues that exhibit, or contribute to the manifestation of, dormancy is great, and there appear to be numerous mechanisms of dormancy induction or release. This complexity was discussed by Romberger (55) nearly 25 years ago. Yet his analysis of the unresolved challenges in dormancy research is still valid today, for the overall understanding of dormancy is limited. This lack of understanding may be due, in part, to the abundance of terminology that has arisen without a nomenclatural framework in which to classify and relate the events being described.