Biology: Developmental Anatomy

Explain by a series of statements or steps how a tree trunk gets wider.

The xylem is the wood, retaining each year's growth record as rings in the tree. The vascular cambium stays a very inconspicuous one or several layers in width but increases in ring size each year with the widening growth of xylem tissues. These increases, along with the bark, add to a tree's growth year after year.

Explain the concept of growth using these terms: differentiate, meristem, elongation, and vascular cambium.

To start off, Differentiate is when a cell grows and is used in a specific function. Meristem is a cell that never differentiates and constantly divides so it is a mitotic cell. Elongation is the plant growing lengthwise therefore the meristem elongates the plant. Vascular cambium is the cambium that starts out in vascular bundles of the plant and then grows to form a ring inside the stem of plants that live for more than a year, it causes an increase in thickness of the stem and branches. So that is how a plant grows.

Nearly all meristematic cells of different plants appear to look alike.

True.

A meristematic cell will differentiate due to its:

DNA

Roots grow downward by cell differentiation.

False.

The vascular cambium cells differentiate into:

- phloem - xylem

Old phloem cells become:

bark

That part of a woody stem, or tree, that is outside the vascular cambium

bark

A crosswise elongation of cells within the stem will produce a ________ or _________.

branch, leaf

The maturation of a cell produced by a plant meristem

differentiation

The term used to describe the condition whereby cells begin to specialize is

differentiation

The first step after production by a meristem

elongation

The chemicals first activated in the seed that help cause other chemicals to react are called

enzymes

The youthful, undifferentiated cells of root and shoot tips

meristem

Cells that multiply and produce growth at various parts of a plant are:

meristematic

Differentiated cells which take on the function of food storage are:

parenchyma

A plant that continues to grow year after year from the same plant body

perennial

One of the tissues making up bark is

phloem

During cell division, energy is needed. The first chemicals to be broken down to use as energy in cell division are called

starch

The meristematic cells under the bark forming a ring around the tree are the

vascular cambium

The meristematic cells which produce new cells increasing plant body girth

vascular cambium

The width of a tree increases through direct growth of the:

vascular cambium

That part of a tree that is interior to the vascular cambium

wood