Survival
Root hair cells can survive for 2 to 3 weeks and then die off. At the same time new root hair cells are continually being formed at the tip of the root. This way, the root hair coverage stays the same. When a new root hair cell grows, it excretes a poison so that the other cells in close proximity to it are unable to grow one of these hairs. This ensures equal and efficient distribution of the actual hairs on these cells.
It is, therefore, understandable that re-potting must be done with care, because the root hair cells are pulled off for the most part. This is why planting-out leaves the plant withered for some time.
Read more about this topic: Root Hair
Famous quotes containing the word survival:
“It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“... survival is the least of my desires.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on “The Survival of the Fittest.” These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)