botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

, a plant shoot consists of any

plant stem A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, stores nut ...

together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the spring,

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also widel ...

plant shoots are the new growth that grows from the ground in

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition o ...

plants or the new stem or flower growth that grows on woody plants. In everyday speech, shoots are often synonymous with stems. Stems, which are an integral component of shoots, provide an axis for buds, fruits, and leaves. Young shoots are often eaten by animals because the fibers in the new growth have not yet completed

secondary cell wall The secondary cell wall is a structure found in many plant cells, located between the primary cell wall and the plasma membrane. The cell starts producing the secondary cell wall after the primary cell wall is complete and the cell has stopped expa ...

development, making the young shoots softer and easier to chew and digest. As shoots grow and age, the cells develop secondary cell walls that have a hard and tough structure. Some plants (e.g.

bracken Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family (biology), family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produ ...

) produce

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. Toxins occur especially as a protein or conjugated protein. The term toxin was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849 ...

s that make their shoots inedible or less palatable. File:Cucumber leaf.jpg, The shoot of a

cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.Sachaline File:Sunflower seedlings.jpg,

Sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), ...

seedlings

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...

File:Persea americana (Avocado) Sprout 08May2010.JPG, A young hass avocado shoot

Shoot types of woody plants

Many

woody plant A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue and thus has a hard stem. In cold climates, woody plants further survive winter or dry season above ground, as opposite to herbaceous plants that die back to the ground until sp ...

s have distinct short shoots and long shoots. In some

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants ...

s, the short shoots, also called spur shoots or fruit spurs, produce the majority of flowers and fruit. A similar pattern occurs in some

conifer Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All ext ...

s and in '' Ginkgo'', although the "short shoots" of some genera such as ''Picea'' are so small that they can be mistaken for part of the leaf that they have produced. A related phenomenon is seasonal heterophylly, which involves visibly different leaves from spring growth and later lammas growth. Whereas spring growth mostly comes from buds formed the previous season, and often includes flowers, lammas growth often involves long shoots. File: Suckers on stump.jpg, Long shoot growth File: Pyrus pyrifolia (Hosui) blossom.jpg, A mature fruiting spur on a Nashi pear tree, '' Pyrus pyrifolia'' File: Cedrus deodara 02.JPG, On long shoots of '' Cedrus deodara'' individual leaves may have buds in the axils. File:20130903Cedrus deodara2.jpg, ''Cedrus deodara'' forms short shoots (from buds) along the long shoots.

References

{{Botany Plant morphology

Shoot types of woody plants

See also

References