The epidermal surface of the maize root tip: III. Isolation of the surface and characterization of some of its structural and mechanical properties.

The surface of the young epidermal cells of maize roots is composed o) three layers; the inner layer (LI), which is the outer epidermal Wall, overlaid by a pellicle consisting of a thick, coherent inner layer (L2) and a very thin, loosely organized outer layer (L3). The entire surface can be removed intact to produce either narrow, circumferential strips or apical halftones, by gently prying it loose in the circumferential direction by hand with insect pins. Usually only short remnants of anticlinical walls of the epidermal cells remain attached. These isolated surface pieces always curl outward at the free circumferential edges in the longitudinal direction of the original intact root. When the strips are deliberated stretched alone their long axis (i.e., the original circumferential direction) they elongate irreversibly by us much us two thirds of their length, before showing some elastic deformation and breaking. Some plastic deformation may occur in the original longitudinal direction of the root during removal of the strips. The plastic deformation opens the helicoidal array of microfibrils in the L1 layer. Deformation also produces structural changes over the original radial walls and those transverse anticlinal walls that form boundaries of cell packets derived from single cells. In these positions the L1 layers over adjacent cells separate in the direction of the applied stress. This occurs by the separation of the L I layers of adjacent cells and the stretching of the inward projection of the amorphous L2 layer of the pellicle which lies; over these original anticlinal walls. There is much less or no separation of the L1 layers over anticlinal walls Of adjoining daughter cells in the epidermis. The pellicle always remains firmly attached to the outer epidermal wall during removal of the surface strips. On removal, these strips shorten in their original longitudinal direction in situ, indicating a release of tension imposed by underlying cells. Their outward curling suggests stress between the wall and pellicle of the outer epidermal surface in the intact root. These findings focus attention on structural differences between sites where anticlinal walls of different origin join the outer surface, and on possible differences in surface extensibility at each sites.