From Seed to Seed:
Plant Science for K-8 Educators

It is the enlarging or elongating of existing cells and the creation of new cells that enables a plant to grow. Let's take a closer look at how this miraculous and mysterious thing called "growth" happens...

Gardeners love to nurture their plants and rejoice when they reward them with lush, healthy growth. But what is really happening inside the plant?

As we mentioned before, plants grow in two ways: by enlarging or elongating existing cells, and by creating new cells through cell division. Cell enlargement is pretty simple, at least in principle. The cell wall softens, the cell takes in more water, and it increases in size. Once the cell reaches its predetermined size, the cell wall thickens and hardens.

During cell division, a cell within the plant body divides to form daughter cells. During this process, the genetic material within the parent cell's nucleus is duplicated, then distributed to each of the daughter cells. Since cell division can seem complicated, we will now devote quite a bit of time to the subject.