The vascular cambium revisited

Abstract

Summary The vascular cambium presents fundamental questions about the evolution and developmental biology of plants. Over time, our perspectives of the vascular cambium have changed as new molecular and genetic approaches have augmented anatomical observations and are now providing new insights into longstanding topics related to vascular cambium evolution, development and function. At the same time, practical applications of knowledge of the vascular cambium associated with climate change give new urgency to research of how the cambium produces varied wood anatomies both among species and within individual trees that influence response to drought and heat stress. Here, two topics are discussed that are generally related to the storied research of Sherwin Carlquist and his pursuits of the vascular cambium; the identity and function of cambium initials, and the plasticity of wood anatomical traits related to adaptive hydraulic traits. This short paper ends with a call for integrative research that could provide new insights into how trees respond to climate change that take advantage of the comparative wood anatomy framework so well-articulated by Carlquist.