Correlation of Cambial Activity with Flowering and Regeneration

Abstract

1. If certain species of plants are allowed to reach an advanced stage of reproductiveness under favorable environmental conditions, the meristematic tissue of their stems tends to become entirely differentiated into xylem and phloem elements. This anatomical condition is a possible explanation of the death of such plants at the close of one reproductive cycle. 2. The cessation or decline of cambial activity which accompanies the production of flowers progresses from the region of the inflorescence toward the base of the plant, which it may or may not reach depending upon the degree of reproductiveness which the plant attains as measured by the relative number of primordia which differentiate floral structures. 3. Vigorously vegetative plants have an active cambium throughout the length of their stems. 4. There appears to be no correlation between the chronological age of the internode and the decrease in cambial activity in plants which are producing flowers. 5. A certain amount of at least potentially meristematic tissue seems to be necessary for a renewal of vegetative growth in stems.