Growth and reproduction are characteristics of cells, indeed of all living organisms. All cells reproduce by dividing into two, with each parental cell giving rise to two daughter cells each time they divide. These newly formed daughter cells can themselves grow and divide, giving rise to a new cell population that is formed by the growth and division of a single parental cell and its progeny. In other words, such cycles of growth and division allow a single cell to form a structure consisting of millions of cells. Other subtopics mentioned in the chapter are Cell Cycle, M Phase, Significance of Mitosis, Meiosis, Significance of Meiosis.

Topics in the chapter Transport in Plants include Means of Transport, Plant-Water Relations, Long Distance Transport of Water, Transpiration, Uptake and Transport of Mineral Nutrients, Phloem, Transport: Flow from Source to Sink. Plants obtain a variety of inorganic elements (ions) and salts from their surroundings, especially from water and soil. In higher plants, there is a vascular system comprising of xylem and phloem, responsible for translocation. Phloem is responsible for transport of food (primarily) sucrose from the source to the sink. The translocation in phloem is explained by the pressure-flow hypothesis.

This chapter focuses mainly on inorganic plant nutrition, wherein we will study the methods to identify elements essential to the growth and development of plants and the criteria for establishing the essentiality. We will also study the role of the essential elements, their major deficiency symptoms and the mechanism of absorption of these essential elements. The chapter Mineral Nutrition also provides a brief introduction to the significance and the mechanism of biological nitrogen fixation.