Adventitious Roots

New roots may arise from atypical locations; these are called adventitious roots. Most commonly, adventitious roots arise out of stems, beginning from stem cortex cell divisions or from buds buried in the bark. In some plants, adventitious roots form on leaves. The field of horticulture is based in large part on cloning plants from cuttings of stems or leaves that form adventitious roots. These roots are also common along rhizomes of ferns, clubmosses, and horsetails. Primary roots and adventitious roots have similar function and structure.

Keywords: adventitious roots; plant hormones; ectomycorrhizal fungi; adventitious root genes; agrobacterium

Figure 1. Removal of the primary root (Phaseolus vulgaris) starts the development of roots on stems (adventitious roots) within 12 h. Inside 48 h, cells that eventually will divide and form new root tissue become very dense and take up stain differently than adjacent non-dividing cells (day 2). By day 4, cells are clearly dividing to form a new root (day 6). Magnification 100×. Photographs taken by Ms Janet Reiber.
close
 References
    Christianson ML and Warnick DA (1985) Temporal requirement for phytohormone balance in the control of organogenesis in vitro. Developmental Biology 112: 494–497.
    Damiano C, Ascarelli A, Frattarelli A and Lauri P (1995) Adventitious regeneration and genetic variability in strawberry. Acta Horticulturae 392: 107–113.
    Diaz-Sala C, Hutchison K, Goldfarb B and Greenwood MS (1996) Maturation-related loss in rooting competence by loblolly pine stem cuttings: The role of auxin transport, metabolism and tissue sensitivity. Physiologia Plantarum 97: 481–490.
    Diaz-Sala C, Garrido G and Sabater B (2002) Age-related loss of rooting capability in Arabidopsis thaliana and its reversal by peptides containing the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) motif. Physiologia Plantarum 114: 601–607.
    book Esau K (1977) Anatomy of Seed Plants. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
    Falasca G, Reverberi M, Lauri P et al. (2000) How Agrobacterium rhizogenes triggers de novo root formation in a recalcitrant woody plant: an integrated histological, ultrastructural and molecular analysis. New Phytologist 145: 77–86.
    Goldfarb B, Hackett WP, Furnier GR, Mohn CA and Plietzsch A (1998) Adventitious root initiation in hypocotyl and epicotyl cuttings of Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) seedlings. Physiologia Plantarum 102: 513–522.
    Greenwood MS, Cui X and Xu F (2001) Response to auxin changes during maturation-related loss of adventitious rooting competence in loblolly pine. Physiologia Plantarum 111: 373–380.
    Ingvardsen C, Veierskov B and Joshi PA (2001) Immunohistochemical localisation of ubiquitin and the proteasome in sunflower (Helianthas annuus cv. Giganteus). Planta 213: 333–341.
    King JJ and Stimart DP (1998) Genetic analysis of variation for auxin-induced adventitious root formation among eighteen ecotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana L. Heynz. Journal of Heredity 89: 481–487.
    Lindroth AM, Kvarnheden A and von Arnold S (2001a) Isolation of a PSTAIRECDC2cDNA from Pinus contorta and its expression during adventitious root development. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 39: 107–114.
    Lindroth AM, Saarikoski P, Flygh G et al. (2001b) Two S-adenosylmethionine synthetase-encoding genes differentially expressed during adventitious root development in Pinus contorta. Plant Molecular Biology 46: 335–346.
    Liu JH and Reid DM (1992) Adventitious rooting in hypocotyls of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedlings. IV. The role of changes in endogenous free and conjugated indole-3-acetic acid. Physiologia Plantarum 86: 285–292.
    Liu JH, Mukherjee I and Reid DM (1990) Adventitious rooting in hypocotyls of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) seedlings. III. The role of ethylene. Physiologia Plantarum 78: 268–276.
    book Mohnen D (1994) "Novel experimental systems for determining cellular competence and determination". In: Davis D and Hassig BE (eds) Biology of Adventitious Root Formation, pp. 87–98. New York and London: Plenum Press.
    Niemi K, Salonen M, Ernstsen A, Heinonen-Tanski H and Häggman H (2000) Application of ectomycorrhizal fungi in rooting of Scots pine fascicular shoots. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 30: 1221–1230.
    Oliver MJ, Muhkerjee I and Reid DM (1994) Alteration in gene expression in hypocotyls of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L). seedlings associated with derooting and adventitious root primordia formation. Physiologia Plantarum 90: 481–489.
    Rayner RJ (1984) New finds of Drepanophycus spinaeformis Göppert from the Lower Devonian of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh – Earth Sciences 74: 79–87.
    Xu F, Greenwood MS, Kozerow C and Hutchison K (2001) Regulation of auxin-induced lateral and adventitious rooting and role of expansin gene expression in loblolly pine. American Society of Plant Biologists Abstract 965 [ http://rycomusa.com/aspp2001/public/P56/1088.html].
 Further Reading
    Ford YY, Bonham EC, Cameron RWF et al. (2002) Adventitious rooting: examining the role of auxin in an easy- and a difficult-to-root plant. Plant Growth Regulator 36: 50–60.
    Haissig BE, Davis TD and Riemenschneider DE (1992) Researching the controls of adventitious rooting. Physiologia Plantarum 84: 310–317.
    Paolillo DJ Jr and Zobel RW (2002) The formation of adventitious roots on root axes is a widespread occurrence in field-grown dicotyledonous plants. American Journal of Botany 89: 1361–1372.
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

How to Cite close
Neuman, Dawn S, and Hansberry, Janis(May 2005) Adventitious Roots. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0002061]