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Vascular Patterns in Palm Stems: Variations of the Rhapis Principle

1974; Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University; Volume: 55; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5962/p.185841

2474-3283

Martin H. Zimmermann, P. B. Tomlinson,

Date Palm Research Studies

Some years ago, we published our first joint paper on the vascular pattern in the stem of Rhapis excelsa, a small ornamental palm of South Florida, native of eastern Asia (Zimmermann & Tomlinson, 1965).Rhapis was chosen for our first analyses for quite practical reasons.The plant is not too big and is available in quantity.Its stem contains only about 1000 vascular bundles in a transverse section, and it is relatively easily sectioned.Anyone who has ever attempted to section palm stem tissues knows that most species are notoriously difficult to handle, because their hard resistant fibrous vascular bundles are surrounded by soft, yielding paren-The choice of Rhapis proved very fortunate because the vascular pattern of its stem is relatively simple.Ever since its discovery this pattern has served us as a model for the understanding of the more complicated vascular patterns of other monocotyledonous species.As soon as the study of Rhapis excelsa was well on its way we began to look both at other species of palms and at other families of monocotyledons.So far we have studied, in greater or lesser detail, about 30 species f palms in addition to plants of other families (e.g., Prionium (Juncaceae),