Lecture 5: How trees

grow wide

Francis King Fir

TJ Watt Photo
Outline

• Tree of the day

• Vascular tissue in primary growth
• Secondary growth: What is wood?
• The vascular cambium: the meristem for growth in width
• How the vascular cambium forms wood and bark
• Annual tree rings
Tree of the day: Giant sequoia
(Sequoiadendron giganteum)
• Largest trees in the world by volume
• Once had a global distribution; now natural range is limited to
small groves in the Sierra Nevada of California
• Like coast redwood, also in the cypress family
• Grows well in Vancouver
The President Tree in
California, a giant
sequoia, is the second
most massive tree in the
world, and is estimated
to be ~3,200 years old
Cones and foliage
Giant sequoia killed by
wildfire in 2020 despite
thick bark
Giant sequoias in Vancouver
• This well-loved ~90-year-old
giant sequoia on 41st in
Kerrisdale was stressed so
was cut down and made
into benches for the
Arbutus Greenway
• Benches in the entry to
Koerner Library made from
wood of a giant sequoia
that died when the library
was built
Largest tree in
Victoria, BC may be
this giant sequoia
Review question: What
meristem makes plants
taller?
A. Vascular cambium
B. Shoot apical meristem
C. Stem cell
D. Xylem
E. Phloem
How does a little seedling like
this…..
Become a huge tree like these?

Sitka spruce forest

Carmanah Provincial Park
Vascular tissue
• Primary growth is growth in height (main
stem) or length (branches and roots)
• Primary growth is produced by the shoot
apical meristem and root apical
meristem
• The primary shoot and root have primary
xylem for water transport, and primary
phloem for transport of sugars,
hormones, etc.
• Xylem transports water and dissolved
nutrients up and phloem transports
other compounds up or down
As seedlings grow taller, they need
to grow thicker for support

• The vascular cambium is the

meristem that produces secondary
growth – growth in width
• Stem cells in the vascular cambium
divide to form secondary xylem
(=wood!) cells to the inside and
secondary phloem (inner, living
bark) to the outside
• Wood transports water up the tree
• Secondary phloem transports food
and other substances down or up Douglas-fir seedling
that will have started
producing secondary
growth
 Cross-section of stem:
Vascular tissue Primary growth

Cut
The vascular cambium contains stem cells
that divide to form secondary xylem and
phloem
• The vascular cambium produces
new cells to the inside (2o xylem)
and outside (2o phloem)
• Secondary xylem is wood
• Secondary phloem is inner
bark
• Eventually the epidermis can’t
stretch to accommodate growth
and it ruptures
• (The outer bark is formed by
another type of meristem, called Outer
the cork cambium) bark
 Three-dimensional representation of the
vascular cambium
Bark (including
secondary phloem)
Vascular
cambium

Secondary
xylem (wood)

Stem cells in
the cambium

(Haygreen and Bowyer)

What is wood?
• Cells that have thick, strong secondary cell walls
• Most wood cells die immediately after they mature
• In conifers, most of the wood cells are called
tracheids, involved in water transport and physical
support
• In angiosperms, cells are specialized to either
provide water transport (vessel element) or
physical support (fibers)
• In most non-tropical species, wood formed in the
spring is important for water conduction; wood
formed in the summer is important for support.
• A small proportion of wood cells remain alive for
storage and secretion (for example, producing resin
for defense)
Wood is remarkably strong for its weight
because of its cell structure and
composition

18
Trees in seasonal climates
produce annual rings

• One ring is produced each year

• The wood produced early in the

growing season (spring) is less
dense with thinner cells walls and
a large lumen (opening) like a
straw

• The wood produced later in the

growing season is much denser
due to thicker cell walls

• The history of trees is written in

their rings (lecture on
dendrochronology later in term)
Wood has di)erent properties in di)erent
directions because of the way the
cells are oriented

Red oak
(Quercus rubra)
 Center
Conifer wood Top of
of tree

tree

Mostly dead, hollow tracheid

cells oriented vertically:
• Earlywood tracheids
conduct water
• Latewood tracheids have
thick cell walls for support

Rays are horizontally arranged

structures that contain some Rays are
living cells, and transport horizontally
materials radially arranged
structures that
contain some living
cells, and
Bottom transport materials
radially
Sequoia sempervirens wood T.L. Rost et al (1979): Botany, a brief 22
introduction to plant biology.
 Latewood

Earlywood
We will discuss the force(s)
that cause water to rise
through these cells next week

23
Pairs of holes between
tracheids, called pit pairs, allow
water to move up from one
tracheid to the next, all the way
from the roots to the top of the
tree (and to leaves along the
way)
• Angiosperm wood has more cell
types, each of which is specialized

• Large-diameter cells called vessel

elements stack up on each other
into vessels capable of high rates
of water flow

• Fibers and tracheids provide

support

• Parenchyma cells, like in conifers,

are involved in storage and
secretion

25
Wood in conifers versus angiosperms
Wood provides the
physical support and
water conductivity for
trees to grow so tall.

General Sherman, giant

sequoia, world’s largest tree
[Link]
World’s tallest living tropical tree, Menara, a yellow meranti tree in Sabah, Unding Jami and a
Malaysia colleague climbing
Menara
”Centurion”, a
eucalyptus, is the
tallest tree in
Australia, and one
of the tallest trees
in the world at
99.7 m
Some trees are wide rather than tall:
The Angel Oak – Charleston, SC
Longest branch is 57 m, crown covers 1579 m2
Wood makes roots strong

Buttressed roots of a Moreton

Bay fig tree growing on the Big
Island of Hawaii
Different tree species have different
root architectures and are suited to
different soil conditions
Not all trees grow tall and straight

• Windswept tree
on the Big Island
of Hawaii
• The strength and
flexibility of
wood helps
trees withstand
high winds

[Link]
m
Wood provides the
tremendous strength
needed to keep leaning
trees from falling over or
breaking, like these Arbutus
trees that are leaning
outwards to access more
light

[Link]
Is a palm tree really a tree?
• Zoom poll
Is a palm tree really a tree?
• Palms are monocots
• They do not have a
vascular cambium
• They do not have wood
• Their stems cannot
thicken much after they
are formed
• So they are not technically
trees
• But they do have a tall
central stem, and perform
some of the functions of
trees
 Baobob trees in Africa

• World’s largest
succulent plants

• 79% of stem is water

• The wood in stems is

very low density and
water may provide
some biomechanical
support
[Link] National Geographic
 Each dark line shows where a
Bark new cork cambium formed.
The oldest one is on the
outside

• The inner bark is secondary phloem,

consisting of living cells that store and A new cork
transport materials both down to the roots cambium
and up to the stem. can form
here
• The outer bark is produced by one or more
additional meristems called cork
cambiums.
• Cork cambiums produce cork, which is
the outer bark.
Some species like
Douglas-fir and larch
form new cork
cambiums that allow
old bark to split,
accommodating tree
growth without
exposing the inner bark
Cork for wine and other uses is
harvested from cork oak trees

• This tree grows throughout the Mediterranean Region

in southern Europe and northern Africa
• Only the outer bark, which is dead, is harvested
• This harvest does not kill the trees
• The tree forms new cork cambiums to grow new
outer bark
Some tree species have
just one cork cambium and
the bark has to stretch

Yellow birch tree

Some tree species form
new cork cambiums in
patches and the old bark
falls oR in scales or in strips

Lacebark pine
Rainbow eucalyptus – WOW!!
From this lecture you should know:
• How to identify giant sequoias, the largest trees in the world
• Vascular tissue: xylem transports water upwards, and phloem
transports sugars and other substances either down or up
• The primary growth of all vascular plants (produced by apical
meristems) contains primary phloem and primary xylem.
• The vascular cambium is the meristem in woody plants
producing secondary growth (growth in width)
• The vascular cambium produces wood (=secondary xylem) to
the inside and inner bark (secondary phloem) to the outside
• Outer bark, most of which is cork, is produced by a third Christy Brigham, US
National Park Service
meristem called the cork cambium*
• Some trees only ever have one cork cambium, and some have Tiny giant sequoia seedlings growing
many* after a fire.

*I don’t expect you to know much about bark and

how it forms, but it is cool!