A solid fungal body may usually be seen to consist of separate hyphae, but in some cases these are so bent and closely interwoven that an appearance like that of ordinary parenchymatous tissue is obtained in section, the structure being called pseudo parenchyrna.
This bundle is continued down into the cortex of the stem as a leaf-trace, and passing very slowly through the sclernchymatous external cortex and the parenchymatous, starchy internal cortex to join the central cylinder.
In the leafPhloeo- blade it takes the form of special parenchymatous erma.
The sieve-tubes differ, however, from the tracheids in being immediately associated, apparently constantly, not with starchy parenchyma, but with parenchymatous cells, containing particularly abundant proteid contents, which seem to have a function intimately connected with the conducting function of the sieve-tubes, and which we may call proteid-cells.
The cylinder is surrounded by a mantle of one or more layers of parenchymatous cells, the pericycle, and the xylem is generally separated from the phloem in the stem by a similar layer, the mesocycle (corresponding with the amylom sheath in mosses).