Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The basic function of the xylem is to transport water upward from the roots to parts of the plants such as stems and leaves, but it also transports nutrients. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The word xylem is derived from the Ancient Greek word, ξύλον ( xylon ), meaning " wood "; the best-known xylem tissue is wood, though it is found throughout a plant. [ 3 ]
The presence of vessels in xylem has been considered to be one of the key innovations that led to the success of the flowering plants. It was once thought that vessel elements were an evolutionary innovation of flowering plants, but their absence from some basal angiosperms and their presence in some members of the Gnetales suggest that this hypothesis must be re-examined; vessel elements in ...
Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, [1] or more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere, such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree, it performs a mechanical-support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves.
The first lignified secondary walls evolved 430 million years ago, creating the structure necessary for vascular plants. The genes used to form the constituents of secondary cells walls have also been found in Physcomitrella patens. This suggests that a duplication of these genes was the driver of secondary cells wall formation. [2]
The vascular cambium is the main growth tissue in the stems and roots of many plants, specifically in dicots such as buttercups and oak trees, gymnosperms such as pine trees, as well as in certain other vascular plants. It produces secondary xylem inwards, towards the pith, and secondary phloem outwards, towards the bark.
Xylem is the water-conducting tissue, and the secondary xylem provides the raw material for the forest products industry. [26] Xylem and phloem tissues each play a part in the conduction processes within plants. Sugars are conveyed throughout the plant in the phloem; water and other nutrients pass through the xylem.
Between the xylem and phloem is a meristem called the vascular cambium. This tissue divides off cells that will become additional xylem and phloem. This growth increases the girth of the plant, rather than its length. As long as the vascular cambium continues to produce new cells, the plant will continue to grow more stout.
Often a secondary covering called the periderm forms on small woody stems and many non-woody plants, which is composed of cork (phellem), the cork cambium (phellogen), and the phelloderm. The periderm forms from the phellogen which serves as a lateral meristem.