sapwood
1
8.1
- noun
- /ˈsæpˌwʊd/
- Specialized
- It has been very badly injured by fires during unknown past centuries, leaving only four narrow strips of sapwood connecting with its roots.
- sapwood and heartwood
- white sapwood
Examples
-
Splitting the locust revealed pale green heartwood and creamy-white sapwood.
Fiction book (1998) -
The sapwood of the tree is essential for transporting nutrients from the roots to the leaves.
-
Sapwood was lighter: living cells that shrink and warp.
Fiction book (1995) -
The boy would run his fingers over the crosscut, reciting, pith, heartwood, sapwood, bark.
Fiction book (1995) -
Living cells divided at an exponential rate, then assembled themselves into tissue types—sapwood and heartwood, bark and vascular tubes.
Fiction book (1995) -
He also reported that sapwood, the outermost layers of wood (including the cambium layer), usually decayed more rapidly than "heartwood," the central core of a tree.
Academic text (2000) -
You can tell the age of the tree by examining the width of the sapwood compared to the heartwood.
-
During the winter, the sapwood helps the tree draw in moisture to survive the cold months.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word sapwood comes from the parts sap ('tree juice') and wood ('the hard part of a tree'), so it literally means the part of a tree that carries the sap just under the bark. That's why sapwood is the softer, paler outer wood that moves water and nutrients through the tree.