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Annals of Botany 72: 81-89, 1993
© 1993 Annals of Botany Company

Water-storing and Cavitation-preventing Adaptations in Wood of Cacti

James D. Mauseth

Department of Botany, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78713, USA

Ancestral cacti presumably had abundant, fibrous, heavily lignified wood, similar to that present in the relictual, leaf-bearing genus Pereskia. During the evolutionary radiation of the subfamily Cactoideae, diverse types of bodies and woods arose. Several evolutionary lines have retained an abundant, fibrous wood: all wood cells, even ray cells, have thick lignified walls, and axial parenchyma is only scanty paratracheal. Aside from a diversity of vessel diameters, there seems to be little protection against cavitation during water-stress, and little water-storage capacity. This strong wood permits the plants to be tall and to compete for light in their tree-shaded semi-arid habitats. In other evolutionary lines, the wood lacks fibres, and almost all cells have thin, unlignified walls. Vessels occur in an extensive matrix of water-storing parenchyma, and tracheids are also abundant, constituting over half the axial tissue in some species. There is excellent protection against cavitation, but little mechanical support for the plant body; however, these plants are short and occur in extremely arid, unshaded sites. Scandent, vinelike plants of two genera produce a dimorphic wood—while their shoots are extending without external support, they produce fibrous, lignified wood, but after leaning against a host branch, they produce a parenchymatous, unlignified wood.Copyright 1993, 1999 Academic Press

Cactaceae, cactus, water-stress, wood, evolution, xylem


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