In addition to preventing water loss, plant cuticles must also regulate nutrient loss, leaching. The eceriferum mutants in Hordeum vulgare (barley) potentially influence these functions by altering epicuticular wax structure and composition.
Li and colleagues combined the use of transmission electron microscopy, x-ray microtomography, and transcriptome methods to characterize the major anatomical and molecular changes that occur during the development and death of velamen radicum cells of Cymbidium tracyanum, a typical epiphytic orchid.