Datu, Angelica S,

2013
PH2-0
Lecture

August 12,
Biology13

TYPES AND FUNCTIONS OF

ROOTS
Roots are the principal water absorbing organs of a plant. They are present on
essentially all vascular plants, although roots are never formed on the primitivelooking whisk fern (Psilotum) and its closest relatives (Order Psilotales) on
Wolfiella (the tinies duckweed) and on the plant body of certain atmospheric
epiphytes such Spanish moss (tillandsia) In fact, a root, by definition, must have
vascular tissues. Example: water conduits in xylem and sugar conduits in phloem,
arranged in a particular way (exarch) much thinner threadlike rhizoids it means
root-like are present on the nonvascular plants, such as mosses and liverworts
and on gametophytes of vascular plants without seeds such as ferns, horsetails and
club mosses.
There are three primary functions of roots:
1) To anchor the plant to a substrate
2) To absorb water and dissolved minerals
3) To store food reserves.
Typically we see roots in soil but there are specialize types of aerial roots(air
roots) that enable climbing plants and epiphytes to become attached to
rocks, bark and other nonsoil subtrates. In addition, parasitic plants may
form specialized haustorial roots that form an attachment disc to the host
during the first stage of colonization. To absorb water and dissolved
minerals.
There are several possible fates of the primary root, in gymnosperms and
dicotyledons the primary root commonly grows to become a thick central root, the
taproot. This may or may not have thick lateral roots. This structural organization
is frequently termed a taproot system.

ADVENTITIOUS ROOTS- the ones that form from shoot tissues not from another
parent root. Most commonly adventitious roots arise out of stems.
NODAL ROOTS- adventitious roots that form characteristics in rings from stem
tissues around a node.
AERIAL ROOTS- roots that are formed in exposed to air.
HAUSTORICAL ROOTS- the root of particular parasitic plants that become
cemented to the host axis via sticky attachment disc before the root or sinker
intrudes into the tissues of the host.
CONTRACTILE ROOTS- roots that become shortened in length and there by
draw the plant .
PNEUMATOPHORES: spongy, aerial roots of marsh or swamps. Breathing
roots
CAUDEX OR LIGNOTUBERS: A taproot that has fused with the stem may
become woody.
STRANGLING ROOTS- the special name for roots of strangling figs (Ficus)
which are primary hemiepiphytes in trees and send-down adventitious roots.
ROOT TUBERS- swollen portions of a root that can have buds to produce new
shoots; when broken off these can grow into a new plant.