Plant cuticle

A plant cuticle is a protective cover on the outer skin of leaves, young shoots, and other parts of plants that grow above the ground.^[1]

It is made of lipids and hydrocarbon polymers mixed with wax. The plant's skin cells make it.^[2] The plant cuticle can be removed from the rest of the plant by using enzymes like pectinase and cellulose.^[3]

The plant cuticle is one of the things that plants developed over 450 million years ago when they moved from life in water to life on land. Along with other features like stomata, xylem and phloem, and spaces between cells, the cuticle helps plants save water. It acts like a waterproof covering, protecting the places where gases are moved. The stomatal guard cells, a kind of control mechanism, manage how much water evaporates and how much carbon dioxide gets exchanged.^[4]

1. ↑ Kolattukudy, PE (1996) Biosynthetic pathways of cutin and waxes, and their sensitivity to environmental stresses. In: Plant Cuticles. Ed. by G. Kerstiens, BIOS Scientific publishers Ltd., Oxford, pp 83-108
2. ↑ RIDGE, IRENE (1997). "Plant Cuticles: an Integrated Functional Approach". The Journal of Agricultural Science. 128 (4): 499–501. doi:10.1017/s0021859697244436. ISSN 0021-8596.
3. ↑ Budke, J. M.; Goffinet, B.; Jones, C. S. (2013-05-01). "Dehydration protection provided by a maternal cuticle improves offspring fitness in the moss Funaria hygrometrica". Annals of Botany. 111 (5): 781–789. doi:10.1093/aob/mct033. ISSN 0305-7364. PMC 3631323. PMID 23471009.
4. ↑ Raven, J.A. (1977), "The evolution of vascular land plants concerning supracellular transport Processes", Advances in Botanical Research, vol. 5, Elsevier, pp. 153–219, doi:10.1016/s0065-2296(08)60361-4, ISBN 978-0-12-005905-8, retrieved 2024-02-01