Water transport in vesselless angiosperms: conducting efficiency and cavitation safety

wo structure-function hypotheses were tested for vesselless angiosperm wood. First, vesselless angiosperm wood should have much higher flow resistance than conifer wood because angiosperm tracheids lack low-resistance torus-margo pits. Second, vesselless wood ought to be exceptionally safe from cavitation if the small cumulative area of pits between tracheids confers safety (the pit area hypothesis).