Bot. Also -id. [a. Ger. tracheïde, introduced 1863 by Sanio, Bot. Zeitung, 113 ‘cellulae sive fibrae ligneae tracheïdeae, kurzweg Tracheïdzellen oder Tracheïden’: f. TRACHEA + -ide, -ID2.] A vascular cell, with pitted lignified wall, which serves for the conduction of water; a vascular wood-cell.
The wood of the vascular tissue of Gymnosperms and Vascular Cryptogams consists wholly of tracheides.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 98. To the Vascular forms belong the ducts and the vascular wood-cells or Tracheïdes. Ibid., 99. Vessels with prosenchymatous constituents now form the immediate passage to the vascular wood-cells (Tracheïdes).
1885. Goodale, Physiol. Bot., § 266. 82. Cells … which are closed throughout … are known as Tracheids.
1895. Oliver, trans. Kerner’s Nat. Hist. Plants, I. 276. The walls of the wood-vessels exhibit similar thickenings to those of the wood-cells or tracheides.
Hence Tracheidal a., pertaining to or of the nature of a tracheide.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
