Research groups at Kyoto University of Education, Kanazawa University, and Japan Women's University have shown that the roots of fern and seed plants are separate organs. ) ”.
Based on the findings from fossil research, there has long been an opinion that the "roots" of seed plants and pterophyta plants are different organs, but no data have been obtained that clearly show the difference between the two.Here, the group compared the kinetics of division at the growth point (root-tip splitting tissue) at the tip of the root between the roots of pterophyta and seed plants, and found that there was a clear difference between the two.
At the root growth point of seed plants, there is a part called the rest center, where cell division does not occur actively.Since the rest center does not divide, the root can grow indefinitely.In other words, the rest center can be regarded as a "warehouse to prevent the newly created cells from being used up as root tissue".Fern plants, on the other hand, do not have this resting center, and every cell divides in the same way.Nevertheless, the roots of fern plants also have the ability to grow indefinitely.Thus, it was suggested that the roots of fern plants and seed plants grow indefinitely by different mechanisms, and it was found that even roots that look the same have completely different formation mechanisms.
Paper information: [New Phytologist] Root apical meristem diversity in extant lycophytes and implications for root origins
