We gardeners love to nurture our plants and rejoice when they reward us with lush, healthy
growth. But what is really happening inside the plant? Let’s look into that
miraculous, mysterious thing called "growth."Plants grow in two ways: by enlarging or elongating existing cells,
and by creating new cells through cell division. Cell enlargement is pretty simple,
at least in principle. The cell wall softens, the cell takes in more water, and increases
in size. Then once the cell reaches a genetically predetermined size, the cell wall
thickens and hardens.
During cell division, a cell within the plant body
divides to form two daughter cells. During this process, the genetic material within the
parent cell’s nucleus is duplicated, then distributed to each of the daughter cells.
Both cell enlargement and cell division occur in specific
regions; growth does not occur randomly throughout a plant. Cell division takes
place in regions called meristems (Gr. meristos=divided).
There are several types of meristems located in different parts of the plant body. In the
regions adjacent to these meristems, the newly-divided cells undergo the process of cell enlargement.
Let’s look at the different types of meristems.
