A fortunate choice: the history of Arabidopsis as a model plant.

During the past 20 years, the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana has been adopted as a model organism by thousands of biologists. This community has developed important tools, resources and experimental approaches that have greatly stimulated plant biological research. Here, we review some of the key events that led to the uptake of Arabidopsis as a model plant and to the growth of the Arabidopsis community.