The defoliated parts of axes had vascular systems in the form of relatively compact cylinders or even solid cores. These studies were carried out on ferns and dicotyledons. The experimental studies that were used to interpret primary vascular organization consisted of removal of young leaf primordia, of partial isolation of apical meristems by vertical incisions, and of division of apices into sectors by radial longitudinal cuts.

There is evidence, however, that in microphyllous representatives the main part of the vascular system of the shoot differentiates independently of the leaves. The information on vascular differentiation in vascular cryptogams is meagre. Others are usually separated by vacuolated parenchyma from the vascular tissue of the parent organ and may initiate their procambium independently. Those that develop close to the apical meristem of the parent shoot may show initial vascular continuity with the latter. The establishment of vascular connexion between an axillary or adventitious bud and the parent organ varies in relation to the time of development of buds. The procambial connexion between the epicotyl and the hypocotyl may also show initial continuity. The procambium shows initial unity in the root-hypocotyl-cotyledon system of the embryo and seedling, but the course of differentiation of the xylem and the phloem does not necessarily duplicate the initial course of the procambium. In the roots of seed plants procambium, phloem and xylem differentiate acropetally and continuously. The first xylem, on the other hand, matures in or near a leaf and then differentiates basipetally in the axis and acropetally in the leaf. The differentiation of procambial cells into phloem cells occurs acropetally and generally continuously.

This procambium appears in the form of strands positionally related to leaves, that is, as leaf traces. Several critical studies of dicotyledons and gymnosperms have shown that the procambium in vegetative shoots is delimited among the derivatives of the apical meristem in continuity with the vascular tissue in the mature part of the axis that is, it differentiates acropetally. The untreated plants were mainly seed plants. During the last ten years the differentiation of the primary vascular tissues has been intensively studied in plants developing normally and in those that were treated experimentally.

Pine young staminate cone xylem phlo