Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Water beads on the waxy cuticle of kale leaves. A plant cuticle is a protecting film covering the outermost skin layer of leaves, young shoots and other aerial plant organs (aerial here meaning all plant parts not embedded in soil or other substrate) that have no periderm. The film consists of lipid and hydrocarbon polymers infused with wax ...
The rigidity is a function of the types of proteins and the quantity of chitin. It is believed that the epidermal cells produce protein and also monitors the timing and amount of protein to be incorporated into the cuticle. [4] Often, in the cuticle of arthropods, structural coloration is observed, produced by nanostructures. [5]
Cuticle analysis, also known as fossil cuticle analysis and cuticular analysis, is an archaeobotanical method that uses plant cuticles to reconstruct the vegetation of past grassy environments. Cuticles comprise the protective layer of the skin, or epidermis , of leaves and blades of grass.
After the old cuticle is shed, the arthropod typically pumps up its body (for example, by air or water intake) to allow the new cuticle to expand to a larger size: the process of hardening by dehydration of the cuticle then takes place. The new integument still is soft and usually is pale, and it is said to be teneral or callow. It then ...
Epicuticular wax can now also be isolated by mechanical methods that distinguish the epicuticular wax outside the plant cuticle from the cuticular wax embedded in the cuticle polymer. [6] As a consequence, these two are now known to be chemically distinct, [ 7 ] although the mechanism that segregates the molecular species into the two layers is ...
In biology, a test is the hard shell of some spherical marine animals and protists, notably sea urchins and microorganisms such as testate foraminiferans, radiolarians, and testate amoebae. The term is also applied to the covering of scale insects. The related Latin term testa is used for the hard seed coat of plant seeds.
Phytochemistry is the study of phytochemicals, which are chemicals derived from plants.Phytochemists strive to describe the structures of the large number of secondary metabolites found in plants, the functions of these compounds in human and plant biology, and the biosynthesis of these compounds.
Like all arthropods, chelicerates' bodies and appendages are covered with a tough cuticle made mainly of chitin and chemically hardened proteins. Since this cannot stretch, the animals must molt to grow. In other words, they grow new but still soft cuticles, then cast off the old one and wait for the new one to harden.