🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Choosing the Right Miniature Succulents The world of miniature succulents offers a captivating variety of shapes, colors, and textures, making the selection process a delightful adventure. When choosing […]
The magic of miniature succulents Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now So, you’re dreaming of a greenhouse brimming with lush, vibrant aloe vera? Excellent choice! But before you grab your trowel and potting mix, let’s talk about choosing the
Growing aloe vera in a greenhouse Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Xerophyte community composition and structure Picture a landscape where water is a precious commodity, a realm of scorching sun and gritty soil. This is the domain of xerophytes,
The impact of grazing on xerophyte communities Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Seed Structure of Cycads Cycads, often dubbed “living fossils,” possess a unique seed structure that reflects their ancient lineage. Unlike the encased seeds of flowering plants, cycad seeds
Cycad seed morphology and germination Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Understanding Dragon Tree Light Needs The majestic dragon tree (Dracaena marginata), with its spiky foliage and intriguing silhouette, is a popular choice for indoor gardening. But even these
Dragon tree light requirements Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Identifying Aloe Plicatilis The aloe plicatilis, also known as the fan aloe or folding aloe, is a truly unique plant within the South African flora. Its most distinctive
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🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Understanding Aloe Vera’s Composition The magic of aloe vera isn’t just skin deep; its potent composition holds a treasure trove of beneficial compounds that contribute to overall health,
Aloe vera and immune system support Read More »
🌿 Discover the Perfect Plants for Your Space! 🌿 Explore our handpicked collection of cycads, aloes, seeds, and more to transform your garden or landscape. Shop Now Cycad Biology and Ecology Cycads, often mistaken for palms or ferns, are ancient seed plants with a fascinating history stretching back to the Permian period, some 280 million
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Hydraulic properties of wetwood differ from normal sapwood: hydraulic conductivity is null and water contained in wetwood is totally trapped. Wetwood could result from a bad healing of dead branches.
Wetwood is a common phenomenon in silver fir (Abies alba Mill.), posing technical challenges for its industrial use. In this study, we thoroughly characterized the properties of this particular wood, investigating the mechanisms governing its formation and exploring its potential physiological relevance for trees. To address these objectives, we used a wide range of techniques, offering a comprehensive insight into the structure of wetwood at different scales, from cellular to whole-tree. Our results revealed significant variability in moisture distribution in the heartwood of the silver fir trees studied, suggesting the absence of a predefined distribution pattern. The physical properties of wetwood differ from those of sapwood, notably in terms of its hydraulic conductivity, which is null. In addition, our study demonstrated that the anatomical characteristics of wetwood are identical to those of normal dry heartwood, including features such as aspirated tori in bordered pits and the absence of nuclei. These results suggest a normal initial duraminization process followed by a progressive resaturation of the heartwood of silver fir. Taken together, these observations strongly suggest that the water present in wetwood is trapped and unavailable for use by the tree, particularly under conditions of prolonged drought.
Mechanism of wetwood formation in silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) Read More »
The deciduous species of the Aronia and Pourthiaea genera are differentiated by the finger-shaped colleters present on the midrib of the adaxial side and the pronounced cuticular folding.
This work presents data on taxonomically significant features of leaf micromorphology in six deciduous species from the closely related genera Aronia and Pourthiaea of the subtribe Malinae (formerly Pyrinae, Maloideae) in the family Rosaceae. All species were found to have hypostomate leaves with numerous anomocytic stomata on the abaxial side. However, Aronia arbutifolia, Pourthiaea arguta, and P. villosa showed single stomata on leaf teeth on the adaxial leaf side. All species exhibited stomatal dimorphism, with a large single ‘primary’ stomata at the center of a cluster of smaller ‘secondary’ (ordinary) stomata. Aronia species were characterized by well-defined cuticular striations on the surface of the adaxial epidermis, as well as cuticular radial folds and peristomatic folds in both types of stomata. Cuticular folding in Pourthiaea species is restricted to radial folds in primary stomata and is less pronounced or absent in secondary stomata. All species of Aronia and Pourthiaea have colleters of deltoid or elongated shape in leaf teeth. In A. mitschurinii and A. arbutifolia, rounded colleters were found in the sinuses between the leaf teeth. Aronia species have the unique feature of forming a special type of colleters on the adaxial side of the leaf midribs. In contrast, Pourthiaea species lacked similar structures. The secretion of the colleters showed an intense peak at 670-674 nm with a small shoulder in the range of 695-740 nm in its fluorescence spectrum. The micromorphological features of the studied leaf structures can serve as taxonomic characters in the genera Aronia and Pourthiaea.
Micromorphology of the leaf structures of Aronia Medik. and Pourthiaea Decne (Rosaceae) Read More »
