Senescence can broadly be defined as the combination of events that leads to the death of cells, tissues, or organs. Such a definition, applied to cut flowers, might include adverse water relations and floret abscission, which normally accompanies the events occurring during ageing and death of floral tissues. It is a common conviction in the floral trade that flowers are very sensitive to ethylene. Amongst plant physiologists, too, the importance of ethylene in the sequence of events i.e., flower senescence is considered well established. These assumptions are based on a substantial body of research. The hormonal role of ethylene in flower senescence was not established until the development of analytical methods sufficiently sensitive to measure the minute quantities produced by the minimal tissues of a flower. Using gas chromatography, researchers have shown that, depending on the species, ethylene may be involved in several phases of flowering, from induction through growth of floral tissues to petal senescence.
