Concept in Definition ABC

It is called xylem to the set of the woody vessels of the plants through which the raw sap. That is, the xylem is a conductive tissue that deals especially with the transport from the raw materials absorbed by the root of a plant, to the producing organs that are the leaves. As a consequence, the transport turns out to be upward, rising from the root to the leaves.

The Energy to carry out the mentioned transport is produced by two physical phenomena: osmosis (moves up the Water accumulated in the root thanks to the difference that exists between the soluble potential corresponding to the root tissue and the humidity of the I usually) Y suction (It attracts the water contained in the vascular tissue to the leaves in order to compensate for the loss of water that exists due to the perspiration of the leaves).

Although, the aforementioned is not the only task that the xylem takes care of, since it also participates in the conduction of minerals, in the reserve of nutrients and on the support.

Regarding its conformation, it is a complex tissue formed by several types of cells, such as: conductive elements (they take care of transportation), xylem vessels and tracheids. These cells come from a lateral meristem.

For their part, xylem vessels they are composed of cells arranged in columns and that reabsorb the common walls. During maturity they remain dead, so the contentsmobile it disappears in such a way that the xylem vessel will constitute a hollow tube. This type of cells will present a secondary wall in cases in which the vessels are in mature organs, in the rest, the secondary wall will appear incomplete.

On the other hand, tracheids, are conductive cells that appear in angiosperms and gymnosperms. Its shape is elongated with a spindle-shaped tip and a secondary wall. His diameter it is smaller than that of the xylem vessel and the fibers will not reabsorb their common walls, instead, they will communicate through pits. For this reason, its transport capacity will be less than that of xylem vessels.