Plant Growth: Phases & Differentiation — NEET Biology

Growth is one of the most conspicuous events in any living organism. It is an irreversible increase expressed in parameters such as size, area, length, height, volume, cell number etc. It conspicuously involves increased protoplasmic material. In plants, meristems are the sites of growth. Root and shoot apical meristems sometimes alongwith intercalary meristem, contribute to the elongation growth of plant axes. Growth is fundamentally a cellular phenomenon. All cells of a plant do not divide all the time; cells, the growth could be arithmetic or geometrical. Growth may not be and generally is not sustained at a high rate throughout the life of cell/ tissue/organ/organism. One can define three principle phases of growth – the lag, the log and the senescent phase. When a cell loses the capacity to divide, it leads to differentiation. Differentiation results in development of structures that is commensurate with the function the cells finally has to perform. In plant growth, both differentiation and dedifferentiation are similar. A differentiated cell may redifferentiate and then redifferentiate. Since differentiation in plants is open, the development could also be flexible, i.e., the development is the sum of growth and differentiation. Plant exhibit plasticity in development.