Shoot (botany)
In
In everyday speech, shoots are often synonymous with stems. Stems, which are an integral component of shoots, provide an axis for buds, fruits, and leaves.
Young shoots are often eaten by animals because the fibers in the new growth have not yet completed secondary cell wall development, making the young shoots softer and easier to chew and digest. As shoots grow and age, the cells develop secondary cell walls that have a hard and tough structure. Some plants (e.g. bracken) produce toxins that make their shoots inedible or less palatable.
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The shoot of a cucumber
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Edible shoots ofSachaline
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Sunflower seedlings germinate
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A young hass avocado shoot
Shoot types of woody plants
Many
A related phenomenon is seasonal heterophylly, which involves visibly different leaves from spring growth and later lammas growth.[4] Whereas spring growth mostly comes from buds formed the previous season, and often includes flowers, lammas growth often involves long shoots.
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Long shoot growth
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A mature fruiting spur on a Nashi pear tree, Pyrus pyrifolia
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On long shoots of Cedrus deodara individual leaves may have buds in the axils.
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Cedrus deodara forms short shoots (from buds) along the long shoots.
See also
- Bud
- Crown (botany)
- Heteroblasty (botany), an abrupt change in the growth pattern of some plants as they mature
- Lateral shoot
- Phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves along a plant stem
- Seedling
- Sterigma, the "woody peg" below the leaf of some conifers
- Thorn (botany), true thorns, as distinct from spines or prickles, are short shoots
References
- ^ Esau, K. (1953). Plant Anatomy. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc. p. 411.
- ISBN 0-7131-2302-8.
- ^ Gifford, E.M.; Foster, A.S. (1989), Morphology, and evolution of vascular plants, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company
- JSTOR 2418518