P. Barry Tomlinson, James W. Horn, and Jack B. Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199558926
- eISBN:
- 9780191810077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199558926.003.0002
- Subject:
- Biology, Plant Sciences and Forestry
This chapter first considers the uniqueness of palms followed by a synopsis of the palm family. It then discusses the habit of palms covering establishment growth, seedling roots, branching, ...
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This chapter first considers the uniqueness of palms followed by a synopsis of the palm family. It then discusses the habit of palms covering establishment growth, seedling roots, branching, rhizomes, and flowering. It shows that the constraints on habit of exclusively primary growth have been overcome in many ingenious ways by palms. Fundamentally, palm axes are monopodial in organization in contrast to most other woody and tree-like monocotyledons, which can be continuously sympodial in development as in Pandanaceae, Dracaena, and Cordyline, and with or without secondary growth. The monopodial palm habit is presumably ancestral and combined with lignified stems produces physiognomically distinctive trees. Most remarkable of all is that they have been claimed to be the longest-lived of all woody plants because their fully differentiated stem cells of many types remain metabolically active longer than in any other seed plant.Less
This chapter first considers the uniqueness of palms followed by a synopsis of the palm family. It then discusses the habit of palms covering establishment growth, seedling roots, branching, rhizomes, and flowering. It shows that the constraints on habit of exclusively primary growth have been overcome in many ingenious ways by palms. Fundamentally, palm axes are monopodial in organization in contrast to most other woody and tree-like monocotyledons, which can be continuously sympodial in development as in Pandanaceae, Dracaena, and Cordyline, and with or without secondary growth. The monopodial palm habit is presumably ancestral and combined with lignified stems produces physiognomically distinctive trees. Most remarkable of all is that they have been claimed to be the longest-lived of all woody plants because their fully differentiated stem cells of many types remain metabolically active longer than in any other seed plant.
