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Hydroid (botany)
A hydroid is a type of vascular cell that occurs in certain bryophytes. In some mosses such as members of the Polytrichaceae family, hydroids form the innermost layer of cells in the stem. At maturity they are long, colourless, thin walled cells of small diameter, containing water but no living protoplasm. Collectively, hydroids function as a conducting tissue, known as the hydrome, transporting water and minerals drawn from the soil. They are surrounded by bundles of living cells known as leptoids which carry sugars and other nutrients in solution. The hydroids are analogous to the tracheids of vascular plants but there is no lignin present in the cell walls to provide structural support. Hydroids have been found in some fossilised plants from the Rhynie chert, including ''Aglaophyton'', where they were initially mistaken for xylem tracheids. See also * Leptoid, a related sucrose-transporting vessel analogous to the phloem Phloem (, ) is the living tissue in vascular plant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all life, forms of life. Every cell consists of cytoplasm enclosed within a Cell membrane, membrane; many cells contain organelles, each with a specific function. The term comes from the Latin word meaning 'small room'. Most cells are only visible under a light microscope, microscope. Cells Abiogenesis, emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago. All cells are capable of Self-replication, replication, protein synthesis, and cell motility, motility. Cells are broadly categorized into two types: eukaryotic cells, which possess a Cell nucleus, nucleus, and prokaryotic, prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus but have a nucleoid region. Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms such as bacteria, whereas eukaryotes can be either single-celled, such as amoebae, or multicellular organism, multicellular, such as some algae, plants, animals, and fungi. Eukaryotic cells contain organelles including Mitochondrion, mitochondria, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bryophyte
Bryophytes () are a group of embryophyte, land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic Division (taxonomy), division referred to as Bryophyta ''Sensu#Common qualifiers, sensu lato'', that contains three groups of non-vascular plant, non-vascular land plants: the Marchantiophyta, liverworts, hornworts, and mosses. In the Sensu#Common qualifiers, strict sense, the division Bryophyta consists of the mosses only. Bryophytes are characteristically limited in size and prefer moist habitats although some species can survive in drier environments. The bryophytes consist of about 20,000 plant species. Bryophytes produce enclosed reproductive structures (gametangia and sporangia), but they do not produce flowers or seeds. They reproduce sexually by spores and asexually by fragmentation or the production of Gemma (botany), gemmae. Though bryophytes were considered a paraphyletic group in recent years, almost all of the most recent phylogenetics, phylogenetic evidence support ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise Marchantiophyta, liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Mosses typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaf, leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a plant stem, stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have conducting tissues, these are generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in vascular plants. Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing sporangium, spores. They are typically tall, though some species ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polytrichaceae
Polytrichaceae is a common family of mosses. Members of this family tend to be larger than other mosses, with the larger species occurring in particularly moist habitats. The leaves have specialized sheaths at the base and a midrib that bears photosynthetic lamellae on the upper surface. These mosses are capable of sustaining high rates of photosynthesis in the presence of ample light and moisture. Unlike all other mosses, the hydroid-based vascular system of these mosses is continuous from stem to leaf and can extract water from the soil through transpiration. Species in this group are dioicous, though some are monoicous. In most species, the sporophytes are relatively large, the setae are rigid, and the calyptrae are hairy. Most species have nematodontous peristomes with 32–64 teeth in their sporangium; some early-diverging genera instead have a stopper mechanism, which consists of the apical section of the columella, that seals the mouth of the capsule shut prior to dehi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protoplasm
Protoplasm (; ) is the part of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane. It is a mixture of small molecules such as ions, monosaccharides, amino acids, and macromolecules such as proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, etc. In some definitions, it is a general term for the cytoplasm (e.g., Mohl, 1846), but for others, it also includes the nucleoplasm (e.g., Strasburger, 1882). For Sharp (1921), "According to the older usage the extra-nuclear portion of the protoplast 'the entire cell, excluding the cell wall''was called "protoplasm," but the nucleus also is composed of protoplasm, or living substance in its broader sense. The current consensus is to avoid this ambiguity by employing Strasburger's (1882) terms cytoplasm Kölliker (1863), originally as synonym for protoplasm''and nucleoplasm van Beneden (1875), or karyoplasm, used by Walther Flemming">Flemming (1878)''">karyoplasm">'term coined by Edouard Van Beneden">van Beneden (1875), or karyoplasm, used by Walther Flemming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leptoid
A leptoid is a type of elongated food-conducting cell like phloem in the stems of some mosses, such as the family Polytrichaceae. They surround strands of water-conducting hydroids. They have some structural and developmental similarities to the sieve elements of seedless vascular plants. At maturity they have inclined end cell walls with small pores and degenerate nuclei. The conduction cells of mosses, leptoids and hydroids, appear similar to those of fossil protracheophytes. However they're not thought to represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of plant vascular tissues but to have had an independent evolutionary origin.Renzaglia, K.S., Schette, S. and Duff, R.J. (2007) "Bryophyte phylogeny: advancing the molecular and morphological frontiers". ''Bryologist'', ''110'', 179-213. See also * Hydroid, a related water-transporting cell analogous the xylem Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue (biology), tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem; both o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tracheid
A tracheid is a long and tapered Lignin, lignified cell in the xylem of Tracheophyta, vascular plants. It is a type of conductive cell called a tracheary element. Angiosperms also use another type of conductive cell, called vessel elements, to transport water through the xylem. The main functions of tracheid cells are to Transpiration, transport water and inorganic salts, and to provide structural support for trees. There are often Pit (botany), pits on the cell walls of tracheids, which allows for water flow between cells. Tracheids are dead at functional maturity and do not have a protoplast. The wood (softwood) of gymnosperms such as pines and other conifers is mainly composed of tracheids. Tracheids are also the main conductive cells in the primary xylem of ferns. The tracheid was first named by the German botanist Carl Gustav Sanio in 1863, from the German ''Tracheide''. Evolution Tracheids were the main conductive cells found in early vascular plants. In the first 140� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lignin
Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity and do not rot easily. Chemically, lignins are polymers made by cross-linking phenolic precursors. History Lignin was first mentioned in 1813 by the Swiss botanist A. P. de Candolle, who described it as a fibrous, tasteless material, insoluble in water and alcohol but soluble in weak alkaline solutions, and which can be precipitated from solution using acid. He named the substance "lignine", which is derived from the Latin word '' lignum'', meaning wood. It is one of the most abundant organic polymers on Earth, exceeded only by cellulose and chitin. Lignin constitutes 30% of terrestrial non-fossil organic carbon on Earth, and 20 to 35% of the dry mass of wood. Lignin is present in red algae, which suggest that the common ancestor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhynie Chert
The Rhynie chert is a Lower Devonian Sedimentary rock, sedimentary deposit exhibiting extraordinary fossil detail or completeness (a Lagerstätte). It is exposed near the village of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland; a second unit, the Windyfield chert, is located some 700 m away. The Rhynie chert contains exceptionally preserved plant, fungus, lichen and animal material preserved in place by an overlying Volcanic rock, volcanic deposit. The bulk of the Devonian fossil bed consists of primitive plants (which had xylem, water-conducting cells and spores, sporangia, but no true leaf, leaves), along with arthropods, lichens, algae and fungi. This fossil bed is remarkable for two reasons. First, the age of the site (Pragian, Early Devonian, formed about ) places it at an early stage in the colonisation of land. Second, these cherts are famous for their exceptional state of ultrastructure, ultrastructural preservation, with individual cell walls easily visible in polished specimen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aglaophyton
''Aglaophyton major'' (or more correctly ''Aglaophyton majus'') was the sporophyte generation of a diplohaplontic, pre-vascular, axial, free-sporing land plant of the Lower Devonian (Pragian stage, around ). It had plant anatomy, anatomical features intermediate between those of the bryophytes and vascular plants or tracheophytes. ''A. major'' was first described by Kidston and Lang in 1920 as the new species ''Rhynia major''. The species is known only from the Rhynie chert in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where it grew in the vicinity of a silica-rich hot spring, together with a number of associated vascular plants such as a smaller species ''Rhynia gwynne-vaughanii'' which may be interpreted as a representative of the ancestors of modern vascular plants and ''Asteroxylon, Asteroxylon mackei'', which was an ancestor of modern clubmosses (Lycopsida). Description The stems of ''Aglaophyton'' were round in cross-section, smooth, unornamented, and up to about 6mm in diameter. Kidston an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xylem
Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue (biology), tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem; both of these are part of the vascular bundle. 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 plant nutrition, nutrients. The word ''xylem'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "wood"; the best-known wood organism is plants, though it is found throughout a plant. The term was introduced by Carl Nägeli in 1858. Structure The most distinctive xylem cell (biology), cells are the long tracheary elements that transport water. Tracheids and vessel elements are distinguished by their shape; vessel elements are shorter, and are connected together into long tubes that are called ''vessels''. Wood also contains two other type of cells: Ground tissue#Parenchyma, parenchyma and ground tissue#Fibres, fibers. Xylem can be found: * in vascular bundles, present in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leptoid
A leptoid is a type of elongated food-conducting cell like phloem in the stems of some mosses, such as the family Polytrichaceae. They surround strands of water-conducting hydroids. They have some structural and developmental similarities to the sieve elements of seedless vascular plants. At maturity they have inclined end cell walls with small pores and degenerate nuclei. The conduction cells of mosses, leptoids and hydroids, appear similar to those of fossil protracheophytes. However they're not thought to represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of plant vascular tissues but to have had an independent evolutionary origin.Renzaglia, K.S., Schette, S. and Duff, R.J. (2007) "Bryophyte phylogeny: advancing the molecular and morphological frontiers". ''Bryologist'', ''110'', 179-213. See also * Hydroid, a related water-transporting cell analogous the xylem Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue (biology), tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem; both o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
