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cambium
(redirected from cambiums)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.06 sec.
cambium (kăm`bēəm), thin layer of generative tissue lying between the bark and the wood of a stem, most active in woody plants. The cambium produces new layers of phloem on the outside and of xylem (wood wood, botanically, the xylem tissue that forms the bulk of the stem of a woody plant. Xylem conducts sap upward from the roots to the leaves, stores food in the form of complex carbohydrates, and provides support; it is made up of various types of cells specialized
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) on the inside, thus increasing the diameter of the stem stem, supporting structure of a plant, serving also to conduct and to store food materials. The stems of herbaceous and of woody plants differ: those of herbaceous plants are usually green and pliant and are covered by a thin epidermis instead of by the bark of woody
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. In herbaceous plants the cambium is almost inactive; in monocotyledonous plants it is usually absent. In regions where there are alternating seasons, each year's growth laid down by the cambium is discernible because of the contrast between the large wood elements produced in the spring and the smaller ones produced in the summer. These are the annual rings, by which the age of a tree can be established. A tree dies when it is "ringed," or girdled, i.e., cut through the cambium layer. The cork cambium, which lies outside the phloem layer, produces the cork cells of bark bark, outer covering of the stem of woody plants, composed of waterproof cork cells protecting a layer of food-conducting tissue—the phloem or inner bark (also called bast).
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cambium

In plants, a layer of actively dividing cells between xylem (fluid-conducting) and phloem (food-conducting) tissues that is responsible for the secondary growth of stems and roots, resulting in an increase in thickness. A cambium may also form within callus tissues. See also bark, wood.


cambium [′kam·be·əm]
(botany)
A layer of cells between the phloem and xylem of most vascular plants that is responsible for secondary growth and for generating new cells.


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