Tuesday, December 28, 2010

X IS FOR...

XYLEM
  ... and what is Xylem you may ask?  Although with the very limited number of X words available, someone has probably used this word before and you probably already know. Ah, but did they illustrate it I wonder?

 I hope you appreciate this. You have no idea what trouble I have gone to to get these photographs.  My printer will not accept my camera's  image card to transfer them to my computer. So to transfer them from my camera I had to use our lap top, which is temperamental at best and SLOW.  It needed an hour and a half to be updated before it would finally accept the image card.  Then the images had to be stored on a flash drive and transferred to my computer.
Anyway...


Look at these pretty flowers.




See how perkily they sit upright on their stems? 

That's because in their stems are  tissue and cells called XYLEM.   Water and nutrients flow from the roots through the stem's XYLEM and keep the flowers firmly upright for all to see and admire.  It almost acts like a straw. 

However, cut the flowers off from their water supply so there is nothing flowing through the XYLEM and 12 hours later this is the result:


TA  DAAH!

So if there is no water flowing through the XYLEM the flowers WILT -- which would have been a good word for last week's ABC WEDNESDAY!


15 comments:

Jay at The Depp Effect said...

An Xcellent illustration of the function of the xylem! It was worth all the work and frustration!

Sylvia K said...

It was indeed worth the work and frustration!! Terrific illustration of the xylem and what it does and doesn't do! As for your earlier post, I know exactly how you feel about your sons! Hope you had a great Christmas and wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

Sylvia

Roger Owen Green said...

xcellent biology lesson! water is so vital to virtually all living creatures.
ROG, ABC Wednesday team

photowannabe said...

Wow, eXtreme frustration and hard work produced an eXcellent post Chris. Great job.

Wanda said...

Oh Chris you are such a good teacher..Looks like a Science Project for my grandson!!!

Great choice for X.

Tumblewords: said...

There's no doubt those flowers ran out of water! :) Interesting post!

claude said...

Very instructive, Chris !
Three days before my orchid began to die. It has been flowered for four mounths.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, Chris, to you and your family.

Joy said...

A worthy battle with technology and now I know all about xylem.

Rune Eide said...

There is obviously nothing wrong with YOUR Xylem ;-)
Nice one!

Happy New Year to both of you!!

Martha said...

What trouble we go to just for a letter of the alphabet. Luckily, I didn't go too far out of my way in getting my pictures. (I considered "borrowing" a photo already online, but it just wouldn't have been the same.)

Unknown said...

The letter X always seems to be one of the hardest letters to come up outside of the letter Z.

I love this post and was at first surprise that you had used Impatiens as your choice of cut flowers, however that was a GREAT Choice for your wonderful explanation of Exylem.

sandy said...

well you persisted and got those photos...they were beautiful and I learned something today.

Morning's Minion said...

I applaud your stamina in wrestling with all things technical. I appreciate learning new words but wonder if xylem is one I can hang onto.

Wanda said...

Chris, just a quick note to tell you I have put up a new Art Challenge for the New Year. Let's go WILD!!!!
Check it out on my Art Blog.

aykayem said...

cool! - a real live science experiment ... well maybe not live by the end of it - lol
btw ... I have mentioned Xylem for X ;-)
... and quite a lot of other weird science/biology stuff for my ABC posts - lol
some of my photos have even been photos of science experiments that students have been doing at the school I work at - but one thing have not done is to actually perform a science experiment/demo just for a blog post! (hmmmm I might have to do that sometime ;-)