Plant anatomy

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Longitudinal section of a female flower of Cucurbita spp. (= Ovary + stylet + stigma), ova, and petals
The plant anatomy is a branch of botany that is dedicated to studying the way the cells, tissues and organs of plants organize themselves.

Plants are living beings and therefore their division into parts only has special function of study. Even though any division of the plant body is arbitrary. Even the simplest studied in primary schools (root, stem, leaves, flowers and fruits) can not be realized entirely because it is impossible to say where the stem ends and the root begins, for example. The divisions serve to study the parts, but always with the purpose of understanding the whole. A morphology of roots, stems and leaves.

The organization of the plant body

The basic unit of plants (as well as that of other living beings) is the cell, the plant cell being differentiated from animals. Such cells are grouped by a cementing substance, and interconnected by channels carrying water and food from one cell to another.

Some groups of cells are different from each other, either in appearance or function. These clusters are called tissues, and may correspond to a set of similar cells (single tissues) or to different cells that together have a defined function (complex tissues).

Finally, the tissues form the organs, which together perform the different functions necessary for the plant to carry out its entire life cycle.