sclerenchyma
Noun
Meaning
Vegetable tissue composed of short cells with thickened or hardened walls, as in nutshells and the gritty parts of a pear. See Sclerotic.
The hard calcareous deposit in the tissues of Anthozoa, constituting the stony corals.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
cork
cortex
meristem
cambium
epidermis
pith
xylem
phloem
parenchyma
collenchyma
endodermis
root hair
trichome
idioblast
stomata
Show all synonyms
Examples
Exceptions include highly lignified cells, the sclerenchyma and xylem which are dead at maturity, and the phloem sieve tubes which lack nuclei.
However, in early plants, tracheids were too mechanically vulnerable, and retained a central position, with a layer of tough sclerenchyma on the outer rim of the stems.