Studies on the Connecting Strand of the Vascular System in Rice Leaves.

Abstract

The author has found in rice leaves, both in blades and in sheaths, many connecting strands running at right angles to the parallely arranged large and small vascular bundles, and making the whole venation like a fine mesh. The mode of differentiation of these fine connecting strands is quite different from that of the parallely arranged vascular bundles. The former begin to differentiate from the tip of young leaves and the differentiation advances basipetally, while the latter, mainly the large vascular bundles, differentiate acropetally. When a stain in absorbed from the base of a leaf, it goes up through the large vascular bundles, and from them, it goes transeversally to the small vascular bundles adjacint to them through the connecting strands mentioned above. This fashion of stain movement in leaves may also prove true in the case of water and nutrients.