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The Plant Stem pp 133–139Cite as

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Anatomical adaptations to permanently changed environmental conditions

Anatomical adaptations to permanently changed environmental conditions

  • Fritz H. Schweingruber3 &
  • Annett Börner4 
  • Chapter
  • Open Access
  • First Online: 14 June 2018
  • 10k Accesses

Abstract

All wood anatomy classification books describe the structure of so-called “normally grown” specimens. Nature, however, also produces a few giants, and many dwarfs. Here the question is raised to which degree local environmental factors modify the morphology and anatomy of stems of individual species. Exemplarily presented are the xylem structures of a few large (giants) and small individuals (dwarfs) of trees and herbs. Larger-thanaverage individuals have experienced mostly favorable growing conditions when they were young, and during their lifetime escaped the effects of extreme growth-limiting factors such as lack of nutrients, water or light, frost, or injury. In contrast, limiting and extreme factors negatively affected growth in small individuals. Giants are the winners, and dwarfs are the losers of competition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research – WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Fritz H. Schweingruber

  2. Melrose Park, South Australia, Australia

    Annett Börner

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  1. Fritz H. Schweingruber
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  2. Annett Börner
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This chapter is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.

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Cite this chapter

Schweingruber, F.H., Börner, A. (2018). Anatomical adaptations to permanently changed environmental conditions. In: The Plant Stem. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73524-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73524-5_9

  • Published: 14 June 2018

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73523-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73524-5

  • eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)

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