Hydration-induced reversible deformation of the pine cone.

Acta Biomaterialia
Haocheng QuanMarc A Meyers

Abstract

The scales of pine cones undergo reversible deformation due to hydration changes in order to optimize seed dispersal. This improves the survivability of the pine. The reversible flexing of the scales is caused by two tissue layers arranged in a sandwich configuration: a layer composed of sclereid cells and a sclerenchyma layer. They expand differentially upon hydration (and contract upon dehydration) due to differences in the structure that are analyzed here for Torrey pine (Pinustorreyana) cones. In addition to this well-known mechanism by which the cellulose microfibrils in the scales vary their angle with the wood cell axis, we confirm the presence of a porosity gradient in the sclereid cells and calculate, using a model consisting of three layers, the stresses generated upon dehydration taking into account the effect of hydration on the elastic modulus. Our quantitative analysis reveals that this gradient structure can significantly decrease the stress concentrations due to the mismatch between the two layers, and show that this is an ingenious design to increase the interfacial toughness to improve the robustness of pine cone scales. We also show that each individual layer of sclereid cells and sclerenchyma fibers undergoe...Continue Reading

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