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Meaning & use

xylem

noun·Academicbiologytechnical

Last updated

UK/ˈzaɪləm/
US/ˈzaɪləm/

Meanings

  1. noununcountablebiology

    The tissue made of narrow tubes that carries water and dissolved minerals from a plant's roots up to its stems and leaves.

    Grammar: Usually uncountable and used without a: water moves through xylem.

    Patterns

    • xylem tissue
    • xylem vessels

    Water travels up the trunk of the tree through the xylem.

    Under the microscope, we could see the xylem vessels as tiny hollow tubes.

    In a woody plant, old xylem forms the wood and gives the trunk its strength.

  2. noununcountablespecialist

    The wood of a tree, which is made mostly of dead xylem cells that give support.

    Grammar: Used in botany for the woody part of stems and roots.

    Patterns

    • secondary xylem

    Each year, a tree adds a new ring of xylem around its trunk.

    The botanist cut a thin slice to study the xylem of an oak branch.

    Most of what we call timber is actually secondary xylem.

Common combinations

xylem and phloem
Xylem and phloem together make up the plant's transport system.
xylem vessel
A xylem vessel is a hollow tube made of dead cells.
xylem sap
Xylem sap is mostly water with a few dissolved minerals.
xylem tissue
Xylem tissue also helps hold the stem upright.
transport water through the xylem
Trees transport water through the xylem to the highest leaves.

Synonyms and how they differ

wood
Wood is the everyday word for the hard material in trees, while xylem is the biological term for the tissue, whether or not it has become wood.
vascular tissue
Vascular tissue is a broader term covering both xylem and phloem, so it is less specific than xylem.

Word family

phloem noun
the plant tissue that carries sugars from leaves to other parts
xylophone noun
a musical instrument with wooden bars; xylo- is also from Greek for wood
xylophagous adjective
feeding on wood, said of insects such as termites
xylem vessel noun
one of the long, narrow tubes in xylem tissue

Commonly confused: xylem or phloem?

xylem vs phloem

Xylem carries water up from the roots, while phloem carries sugars made in the leaves to the rest of the plant. A memory aid is that xylem has an x like a cross-section of a pipe.

Practice

Which tissue carries water and minerals upward from a plant's roots?

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