The management of extracellular ice by petioles of frost-resistant herbaceous plants.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Some frost-tolerant herbaceous plants droop and wilt during frost events and recover turgor and posture on thawing. It has long been known that when plant tissues freeze, extracellular ice forms. Distributions of ice and water in frost-frozen and recovered petioles of Trifolium repens and Escholschzia californica were visualized.

Methods

Petioles of intact plants were cryo-fixed, planed to smooth transverse faces, and examined in a cryo-SEM.

Key results

With frost-freezing, parenchyma tissues shrank to approx. one-third of their natural volume with marked cytorrhysis of the cells, and massive blocks of extracellular icicles grew under the epidermis (poppy) or epidermis and subepidermis (clover), leaving these layers intact but widely separated from

SUBMITTER: McCully ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4242212 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature