Questions on terminology & flower development

[Martin E. Mulligan]

I am preparing a journal club presentation on flower development in 
Arabidopsis based on the paper by Schultz et al (Plant Cell 
3:1221-1237, 1991).  In doing some fast background reading, I have a 
question that I would like to pose to this newsgroup with respect to 
current or accepted terminology for homeotic genes in Arabidopsis.  
Specifically, I have seen the (somewhat whimsical?) term "floreo box"
used to describe the DNA binding domain of the AG protein (Meyerowitz 
et al., Dev Supp 1, 157-167, 1991) and also the term "MADS box" used 
to describe the same domain based upon comparisons with DEF A from 
Antirrhinum.  Is there any consensus among Arabidopsis workers about 
the use of either or both of these terms?

As long as I am posting to this group let me also ask - are there any 
recent developments in the current thinking about the molecular 
biology of flower development in Arabidopsis that have shed light on 
the overall models of the process or on the roles of individual gene 
products which have not yet been published but which I might want to 
mention in my presentation?  Any helpful information will be 
appreciated.

Martin E. Mulligan
Department of Biochemistry
Memorial University of Newfoundland