Background Silicon and aluminium oxides make the bulk of agricultural soils. Plants absorb
dissolved silicon as silicic acid into their bodies through their roots. The silicic acid moves …

Background Collenchyma has remained in the shadow of commercially exploited
mechanical tissues such as wood and fibres, and therefore has received little attention since …

From Galileo, who used the hollow stalks of grass to demonstrate the idea that peripherally
located construction materials provide most of the resistance to bending forces, to Leonardo …

The significance of inspiration from nature for technical textiles and for fibrous composite
materials is demonstrated by examples of already existing technical solutions that either …

Sorghum has been recognized as a promising energy crop. The composition and structure
of lignin in the cell wall are important factors that affect the quality of plant biomass as a …

Equisetaceae has been of research interest for decades, as it is one of the oldest living plant
families, and also due to its high accumulation of silica up to 25% dry wt. Aspects of silica …

Current cell-wall models assume no covalent bonding between cellulose and
hemicelluloses such as xyloglucan or mixed-linkage β-d-glucan (MLG). However …

The mechanical characteristics of the strengthening tissue of young axes of Aristolochia
macrophylla were studied in successive loading–unloading cycles in tension. Elastic …

Horsetails are unique survivors of a very ancient group of vascular plants, the Sphenophyta,
which has a history reaching back to the Upper Devonian. Despite the striking conservatism …

Solid Biomechanics is the first book to comprehensively review the mechanical design of
organisms. With a physical approach and a minimum of mathematics, the textbook …