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Annals of Botany 75: 133-142, 1995
© 1995 Annals of Botany Company
Plant Height and the Properties of Some Herbaceous Stems
Section of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
The volume fraction (VF) of lignified tissues and density-specific stiffness (the quotient of the Young's elastic modulus E and bulk tissue-density 
) were determined for the stems of a total of 76 herbaceous species and correlated with plant height H and stem diameter D to determine the influence of stem anatomy and physical properties on the allometry of plant height. Among the 76 bryophyte, pteridophyte, dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous species examined, H increased as the 1·53-power and VF increased as the 1·73-power of D, indicating that the stems of taller species were disproportionately more slender and lignified than those of shorter species. In contrast, E / increased as the 0·98-power of VF, showing that stem stiffness relative to weight per unit volume of tissues varied in near direct proportion to the degree of stem lignification. The isometric scaling of E / with respect to VF resulted from the inverse relation between E and , although the correlation for this relation was poor (r2 = 0·59). Based on D and E/, stem critical buckling height Hcrit (i.e. the maximum height to which a stem can grow before it elastically buckles under its own weight) scaled as the 1·19-power of D. Since H 
D1·53, the safety-factor against elastic buckling decreased roughly as the 1/3-power of D (i.e. Hcrit /H D-0·34). Despite significant anatomical differences among stems, most of the 76 herbaceous species had stems consisting of a rigid rind surrounding a comparatively incompressible core of tissues.Copyright 1995, 1999 Academic Press
Stem biomechanics, anatomy, plant height, allometry
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