Xylem and Phloem

The xylem is the principal water-conducting tissue of vascular plants. It consists of tracheary elements, tracheids and wood vessels and of additional xylem fibres. All of them are elongated cells with secondary cell walls that lack protoplasts at maturity. Bordered pits are typical for tracheids, while wood vessels are marked by perforated or completely dissolved final walls.

Phloem is the vascular tissue plants use to transfer sugars from sites of production or storage to locations where energy is needed. In contrast to xylem, phloem tissues are living. Sieve tube members connect at specialized areas called seive plates. At maturity the seive tube members lose their nuclei and fill with a complex proteinaceous material called cell sap. Sugars are transported through the cell saps of adjacent cells.

In losing their nuclei, sieve tube members lack the molecular control mechanisms most living cells possess. Nucleated cells adjacent to sieve tube members appear to take over the control of cellular functions within these phloem transport cells. These nucleated cells are appropriately called companion cells.

Sieve plates are specialized areas where materials flow through tiny pores from one sieve tube member to another.
Most phloem cells are parenchyma cell types. Sometimes phloem tissues contain sclerenchyma fibers for support.