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Article: Cork
- Article from:
- Plant Sciences
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Cork
Anatomically, cork is a secondary tissue formed from a specialized
lateral meristem
located in the stems and roots of woody gymnosperms and
angiosperms
. The tissue develops from a ring of meristematic cells (the cork cambium or phellogen) located beneath the outer surfaces of the tree, and to the outside of the vascular cambium. The cells that form from the cork cambium are specialized, in that their cell walls contain a high proportion of suberin, a fatty material that
impedes
the movement of water. As cells derived from the cork cambium continue to grow, they eventually die when mature, not unlike the development of xylem cells from the vascular cambium. The result of this ...