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rhytidome

plant tissue
Also known as: outer bark

Quick Summary

The rhytidome is the outermost layer of bark on woody plants, essentially the dead, layered bark that forms external to the most recent periderm (cork cambium). This outer bark is composed of cork and old, dead phloem tissue. The dead cork cells are coated with suberin, a fatty substance that makes them impermeable to water and gases, though gas exchange can occur through spongy areas called lenticels. The term "bark" broadly refers to all tissues outside the vascular cambium, with the inner bark (soft bark or bast) being secondary phloem that transports food from leaves, and the outer bark being a product of the cork cambium.12

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3 Britannica Sources
  1. bark
  2. rhytidome
  3. Rhynie plant

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