Home / Plant Anatomy & Taxonomy / Plant Anatomy

Karen Antell, Biology Department, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande: Plant Biology Images. Images about herbaceous stems, leaves, roots, embryos, fruits, fungi, protista, and non-vascular plants (Mosses, Liverworts). Provided for the students home study. Anyone else is free to use them for similar purpose, but not for commercial reproduction.
Still available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! R. Barclay, P. Wilf, D. Dilcher, A. Sokoloff, J. Leon-Guerrero & C. Thurman: Cuticle Database. The Cuticle Database Project aims to promote the understanding and identification of living and fossil plants. This project is a collaborative effort between researchers at Northwestern University, The Field Museum, the Florida Museum of Natural History, and Pennsylvania State University. See also here:
! R. Barclay, et al. (2007): The cuticle database: developing an interactive tool for taxonomic and paleoenvironmental study of the fossil cuticle record. PDF file, In: Jarzen, D. M., Steven, R., Retallack, G. J. and Jarzen, S. A. (eds.), Advances in Angiosperm Paleobotany and Paleoclimatic Reconstruction, Contributions Honouring David L. Dilcher and Jack A. Wolfe, Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt, pgs. 39-56.

! J. Barros et al. (2015): The cell biology of lignification in higher plants. Free access, Annals of Botany, 115: 1053–1074.

! Charles B. Beck (2009): An Introduction to Plant Structure and Development: Plant Anatomy for the Twenty-First Century. Provided by Google books (limited preview), see also here (book announcement).

Dale M. Benham, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Plant Study Resources: Plant Anatomy Photo Archive. More than 50 images of stems, roots, and leaves of vascular plants commonly studied in Plant Biology courses. Also worth checking out: Interactive Version Plant Anatomy Study. (Flash). Four lessons (Cell Types, Meristems, Plant Organs and Tissues) are available for study.

Biologie-Schule.de:
! Die Botanik.
Lecture notes, in German.

Karen Bledsoe, Western Oregon University, Monmouth OR:
Plant anatomy (in PDF), and
Plant Anatomy: Plant Tissues. Powerpoint presentations.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! Botanical Society of America: Online Image Collection. Educational images for instructional use.

! The Botanical Society of America: The American Journal of Botany Cover Images Index. The collection on the page holding the cover images of the American Journal of Botany. A great set of images! See also:
! Online Image Collection. This page acts as a map to the entire collection. Images are classified in groups in which they were submitted for historical purposes, e.g. Carnivorous Plants, Cellular Communication Channels, Economic Botany, Floral Ontogeny, Lichens, Organography, Paleobotany, Phloem Development, Plant Anatomy, Plant Defense Mechanisms, Plant Geography ,Plant Morphology, Pollen, Xylem Development, Filicophyta, Psilophyta, Sphenophyta. Each image acts as a link to a page containing more information, and a larger version of the picture.
These expired links are available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Botany On-line, Hamburg: The Xylem. Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

W.E. Boyd and G.L. Pretty (2009): Some prospects for archaeological palaeobotany in Australia: An example from South Australia. Australian Archaeology.

Jamie Boyer, The New York Botanical Garden: Welcome to the Botanical Education site. Here you find information on courses and blogs created by Jamie Boyer, e.g.
! Plant Diversity. About the diversity, morphologies, life histories, and evolution of plants, as well as information about bacteria, archaea, fungi, and algae/protists.

! Curtis Clark, Biological Sciences Department California State Polytechnic University, Pomona: Plant Morphology. Resources, PDF files.
Website outdated. The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

L. Cooper et al. (2013): The Plant Ontology as a Tool for Comparative Plant Anatomy and Genomic Analyses. Plant and Cell Physiology, 54.

! The Cornell University Plant Anatomy Collection (CUPAC).
CUPAC is an historically important collection of anatomical slide preparations of a wide array of plant parts. Slides are being imaged by volunteers and undergraduate student workers, and simultaneously barcoded and databased. Post-processing involves automated resizing and labeling as well as magnification calibration that allows online measurement tools to be used as overlays on the images. Superbly done!

! John D. Curtis, Biology Department, University of Wisconsin; Nels R. Lersten, Department of Botany, Iowa State University, and Michael D. Nowak, Biology Department, University of Wisconsin: Photographic Atlas of Plant Anatomy.

David F. Cutler, Ted Botha and Dennis Wm. Stevenson: Plant anatomy: an applied approach. Provided by Google books. See also here (Wiley). See also:
Morphology and tissue systems: the integrated plant body (in PDF).

B. De Rybel et al. (2016): Plant vascular development: from early specification to differentiation. Abstract, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol., 2016: 30-40. see also here and there (in PDF).

D.L. Dilcher (1991): The importance of anatomy and whole plant reconstructions in palaeobotany. PDF file, Current Science 61: 627-629.

! D.L. Dilcher (1974): Approaches to the identification of angiosperm leaf remains. In PDF, The Botanical Review, 40: 1–157. Also availabe via here (in PDF).
See also here.
"... Many techniques for the study of the morphology of modern and fossil leaves are included in this paper as well as tables outlining features of leaf venation and the epidermis ..."

V.M. Dörken and H. Nimsch (2018): A monograph of leaf characters in the genus Abies (Abietoideae, Pinaceae). In PDF.

Debra Cleveland, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, Davis: Remembering Katherine Esau.
Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Ray F. Evert and Susan E. Eichhorn: Esau´s Plant Anatomy: Meristems, Cells, and Tissues of the Plant Body: Their Structure, Function, and Development. Provided by Google books. See also here (Amazon).

M.J. Farabee, Estrella Mountain Community College, Phoenix, Arizona:
! On-Line Biology Book. Table of Contents. Introductory biology lecture notes. Go to:
! Plants and their structure.
! Plants and their Structure II.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

The Plant Histology Facility, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Plant anatomy: online microscopy.
These freely accessible virtual slides can be explored interactively by zooming-and-panning in real-time. A HTML5-based virtual microscope allows the examination of large and small tissues or cell types in the same specimen within the context of the whole plant organ.

U.G. Hacke et al. (2015): The Hydraulic Architecture of Conifers in Ecological and Functional Xylem Anatomy. In PDF, book chapter, Springer International.

E. Iglich, McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland, USA: Images of Leaves, Stem, Root and Woody Tissues.
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! K. Ilic et al. (2007): The plant structure ontology, a unified vocabulary of anatomy and morphology of a flowering plant. Free access, Plant Physiology, 143: 587-599. "... Formal description of plant phenotypes and standardized annotation of gene expression and protein localization data require uniform terminology that accurately describes plant anatomy and morphology.
[...] we created the Plant Structure Ontology (PSO), the first generic ontological representation of anatomy and morphology of a flowering plant ..."

The InsideWood Working Group (wood anatomists and North Carolina State University Libraries professionals):
! The InsideWood Database. This project integrates wood anatomical information from the literature and original observations into an internet-accessible database useful for research and teaching. Currently 8,735 descriptions and 45,225 images, including 1,807 fossil wood descriptions and 2,910 fossil wood images. Superbly done and very helpful! Also worth checking out:
! Wood Anatomy Links, Wood Collection Catalogs.

Steven Jansen, Laboratory of Plant Systematics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium: Links. Some links to web sites related to wood anatomy, including wood collections, general information, course materials, and plant taxonomy.

Johnny M. Jessup (Hobbton FFA): Plant Anatomy and Physiology. Powerpoint presentation.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! H. Kerp (2017): Organs and tissues of Rhynie chert plants. Open access, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20160495.

! M.A.K. Lalica (2024): Evolutionary origins of secondary growth-the periderm perspective: Integrating evidence from fossils and living plants. Free access, Thesis, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
Note figure 7: A model for the developmental sequence of wound-response periderm in early euphyllophytes.
Figure 15: Wound periderm in fossil plants.
"... Knowledge of periderm occurrences in the fossil record and living lineages outside the seed plants is limited and its evolutionary origins remain poorly explored
[...] I add new observations and experiments on living plant lineages and new occurrences from the fossil record. One of the latter, documented in the new early euphyllophyte species Nebuloxyla mikmaqiana, joins the oldest known periderm occurrences (Early Devonian), which allow me to construct a model for the development of wound-response periderm in early tracheophytes ..."

Biological Sciences, Ohio State University, Lima: Plant Biology at OSU Lima.
This expired link is now available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! W.J. Lucas et al. (2013): The Plant Vascular System: Evolution, Development and Functions. In PDF, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 55: 294-388. See also here.

Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison:
! Teaching Images.
This collection of resources was originally organized to serve the needs of the students and instructors of the introductory course General Botany.

Alan Maude & M. Smith, SCHOOL RESOURCES from www.microscopy-uk.org.uk: Plant Biology. Images with explanations.

James D. Mauseth, Integrative Biology, University of Texas: Plant Anatomy Laboratory: Micrographs of plant cells and tissues. With explanatory text.

Edgar Moctezuma. Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, Washington D.C.
Lecture 3: Plant anatomy and physiology. Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.
See also here and there.

Gilbert J. Muth, Pacific Union College, Angwin, CA:
Biological Foundations. Biological Foundations is the botany section of the a three quarter sequence in general biology for biology majors and pre-professional students. It contains
38 lectures with a (incomplete) supporting glossary, photographs, photomicrographs, diagrams, animations, video clips, self test and set of references. See chapter 1-8!
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Myclass.Peelschools.org:
Plant´s Tissue Systems.
Systems in Plants.
Powerpoint presentations.
Available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Mark E. Olson (2012): Linear Trends in Botanical Systematics and the Major Trends of Xylem Evolution. In PDF.

! J.G. Onyenedum and M.R. Pace (2021): The role of ontogeny in wood diversity and evolution. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 108: 2331-2355.
See also here.

! M.R. Pace (2020): Phloem: Cell Types, Structure, and Commercial Uses. Chapter 1, in:
A. Gonzalez et al. (eds., 2020). Plant Science - Structure, Anatomy and Physiology in Plants Cultured in Vivo and in Vitro. Open access, (IntechOpen).
"... Phloem is the vascular tissue in charge of transport and distribution of the organic nutrients. The phloem is also a pathway to signaling molecules and has a structural function in the plant body. It is typically composed of three cell types: sieve elements, parenchyma, and sclerenchyma
[...] In this chapter, the structure of the phloem and its cell types are described in detail and also some of the known commercial uses of this tissue ..."

PageWise Inc.: Public Bookshelf, Methods in Plant Histology. This book has been published in the early 1900´s.

! N. Pérez-Harguindeguy et al. (2013): New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide. In PDF, Australian Journal of Botany, 61: 167-234.

R.L. Peterson et al. (2008): Teaching plant anatomy through creative laboratory exercises. Book review (PDF file) by N. Chaffey, Annals of Botany, 2009.

! J. Pittermann et al. (2015): The structure and function of xylem in seed-free vascular plants: an evolutionary perspective. In PDF. See also here.

Quizlet LLC: Plant Anatomy and Physiology.

! James L. Reveal, Norton-Brown Herbarium, University of Maryland: FindIT, Links to Web Sites of Botanical Interest, Dictionaries. Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology - Life Sciences - e.g. Biology, Botany, Cell Biology, Ecology, Evolution, Molecular Biology, Systematics, etc. Excellent!

! Alison Roberts, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI: Plant Anatomy BIO 311. The table of contents, lab schedule and an electronic copy of the lab manual in Adobe Acrobat pdf ("portable document format") are available for viewing online. The lab manual is also available for downloading and printing. The Slides are also organized by lab topic.
These expired links are available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! Alison Roberts, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI: Plant Anatomy BIO 311. To view photomicrographs of plant anatomy slides, visit the Lab review slides section.
! Don´t miss the Glossary.
These expired links are available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Plant Micromorphology Bibliographic Database. A database of references relevant to the anatomy and pollen/spore morphology of flowering plants, gymnosperms and ferns. Free of charge. Registration gives access to a much larger number of references. There is a search option looking for palaeobotany!
This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

! L. Sack and C. Scoffoni (2013): Leaf venation: structure, function, development, evolution, ecology and applications in the past, present and future. Free access, New Phytologist, 198: 983–1000.
Note figure 6: Evolution of terrestrial plants and their traits, including leaf vein traits against geological periods and time.

! Schmidt, Diane, Allison, Melody M., Clark, Kathleen A., Jacobs, Pamela F. and Porta, Maria A., Libraries Unlimited (a member of the Greenwood Publishing Group): Guide to Reference and Information Sources in Plant Biology. This directory contains the URLs and annotations for Web-accessible resources. Go to:
General Sources,
Systematics and Identification,
Anatomy, Morphology, and Development.

Paul Schulte, University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Atlas of Plant Anatomy. Light microscopic images of cells and tissues, roots, stems, leaves, apical meristems, and reproductive structures.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! F.H. Schweingruber and A. Börner (2018):
The Plant Stem
A Microscopic Aspect. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Open access! Excellent!

! F.H. Schweingruber and P. Poschlod (2005): Growth Rings in Herbs and Shrubs: life span, age determination and stem anatomy. In PDF, For. Snow Landsc. Res., 79: 195-415.

ScienceDirect:
! Plant Anatomy. Auto-generated by ScienceDirect using heuristic and machine-learning approaches to extract relevant information.

! O. Serra et al. (2022): The making of plant armor: the periderm Annual review of plant biology, 73: 405-432.
Note figure 1: Different protective tissues act during primary and secondary growth of stem and roots.
! Figure 4: Wound periderm formation and phellogen regulatory network.

H.-C. Spatz et al. (1998): Biomechanics and functional anatomy of hollow-stemmed sphenopsids. I. Equisetum giganteum (Equisetaceae) Open access, American Journal of Botany, 85: 305-314.

Sloan Center for Asynchronous Learning Environments, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana: Virtual Cell. This is a collection of still images, texts and movies covering the structure and functioning of a typical plant cell.

ScienceDirect:
Auto-generated by ScienceDirect using heuristic and machine-learning approaches to extract relevant information.
Plant Anatomy. Auto-generated by ScienceDirect using heuristic and machine-learning approaches to extract relevant information.

K.C. Shunn and C.T. Gee (2023): Cross-sectioning to the core of conifers: pith anatomy of living Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae, with comparisons to fossil pith. Open access, IAWA Journal.
"... In addition to a general paucity in pith descriptions [...] we focus here on the pith of 16 conifer species [...] as well as comparing pith anatomy in regard to branch age, genus, and family. Furthermore, comparisons are made to fossil conifer pith to elucidate common features shared by living conifers and their ancient relatives ..."

Michael G. Simpson: Plant Anatomy & Physiology. Powerpoint presentation.

! R.A. Spicer (1989): Physiological characteristics of land plants in relation to environment through time. In PDF, Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, 80.
See also here.

W.L. Stern (1978): A retrospective view of comparative anatomy, phylogeny, and plant taxonomy PDF file, IAWA Bull.

The School of Biological Sciences and the University of Sydney Library, The University of Sydney:
eBot Plant Sciences Collection. This website provides access to a rich research collection of micrographs and plant images.

! TRY Plant Trait Database. Quantifying and scaling global plant trait diversity.
TRY is a network of vegetation scientists headed by Future Earth and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, providing a global archive of curated plant traits. Please take notice:
! J. Kattke et al. (2011): TRY – a global database of plant traits. Global Change Biology, 17: 2905–2935.

TutorVista.com.
TutorVista provides online tutoring to students across the world. Go to:
Plant Anatomy.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Mike Viney, Ft. Collins, Colorado: The Virtual Petrified Wood Museum. Images of fossil wood and other fossils sorted by geological age. See especially:
! The Anatomy of Arborescent Plant Life Through Time.

Roy Volkwyn and Jocelyn Collins, Internet BioEd Project, Western Cape Schools Network and Botany Department, University of the Western Cape, South Africa: Angiosperm Anatomy. Go to: Resources.

Wayne´s Word.
Biology and Botany, Stem and Root Anatomy. Cellular structure of vascular plants.
The link is to a version archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Elisabeth A. Wheeler, Department of Wood and Paper Science, North Carolina State University: Wood Anatomy and Properties. See the Lecture notes. The first part of the course discusses the macroscopic features common to all native woods, tree growth, and wood formation. Next is a study of softwood and hardwood anatomy that emphasizes the relationship between structure, function, and material characteristics. Discussion of cell wall properties precedes an introduction to some of wood´s physical and mechanical properties. Worth checking out: The handlens identificacation page.

Wichita Falls Independent School District (WFISD), Wichita Falls, TX:
Plant anatomy. Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.

! A.C. Wiedenhoeft and R.B. Miller (2005): Structure and function of wood. In PDF, Handbook of wood chemistry and wood composites, Boca Raton, Fla. (CRC Press), pages 9-33.
An extended description of the microscopic structure of soft- and hardwoods, e.g. tracheids, rays, vessels, pits, growth rings, etc.
See also here (Google books), and there.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
! Plant anatomy.
! Phytotomie (in German).
Leaf.
Category:Plant anatomy.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Category:Plant anatomy.
Category:Wood.
Dendrochronology.
Tylosis.
Verthyllung (in German).

Hugh D. Wilson, Department of Biology Herbarium (TAMU), Texas A&M University (with support from the Texas A&M Center for the Study of Digital Libraries):
BOTANY 201 - TAXONOMY OF FLOWERING PLANTS Lecture Notes - Fall 1998.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

! The World of Teaching.
Over 1000 powerpoint presentations made by teachers are available for download.
Free Biology powerpoints. See e.g.:
Botany, Photomicrographs, Plant Tissues Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.