A study of the vascular organization of bamboos (Poaceae-Bambuseae) using a microcasting method

Abstract

A reliable and simple microcasting method is applied to the study of the vascular structure in bamboo nodes; it provides new insights into their complexity, revealing the exact arrangement of branched vessels and clustered tracheary elements. Axial differentiation gradients in the metaxylem cell files, probable relics of the intercalary meristem, can also be found using this method. This anatomical finding can be linked to a recent hypothesis on the continuum in the tracheary element differentiation.