The root cap is a section of tissue at the tip of a plant root. It is also called calyptra. Root caps contain statocytes which are involved in gravity perception in plants. If the cap is carefully removed the root will grow randomly. The root cap protects the growing tip in plants. It secretes mucilage to ease the movement of the root through soil, and may also be involved in communication with the soil microbiota.
The root cap is absent in some parasitic plants and some aquatic plants, in which a sac-like structure called the root pocket may form instead.
Famous quotes containing the words root and/or cap:
“Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)