Difference between revisions of "stem wood (Q1860)"

The water-conducting and usually main supporting tissue of a plant or portion thereof, characterized by the presence of tracheary elements (tracheids and sometimes vessel elements); the lignified tissue of a plant or component structure, composed almost entirely of secondary tissue, i.e., that derived by secondary or lateral growth from a cambium in structures a season or more old. As commonly used, the term wood generally refers only to secondary xylem, which constitutes the bulk of a mature woody stem, but it properly refers also to primary xylem, wherever found. See also sapwood, heartwood.