58—Morphological Relations in Cellulose Fibre Cells

The dimensions and X-ray spiral orientation of the cells extracted from native cellulose fibres are measured for a variety of fibre-bearing plants. Leaf fibre cells show marked variation in dimensions and orientation, but there is an inter-dependence of these properties such that the longer cells are of smaller width and steeper spiral than the shorter cells. Phloem fibre cells have different dimensions and orientation according as to whether they are of primary or secondary origin, the primary cells being longer, broader, and oriented more nearly parallel to the length, than the secondary cells. The relationships connecting length, breadth, and orientation as described by the Hermans angle, in the case of leaf fibres, suggest, if interpreted in terms of a simple spiral model, that the spiral turns per unit length tend to be constant for the different cell species, and that the average length of the cells tends to vary inversely as the average breadth.