Difference Wiki

Stem vs. Root

The main difference between Stem and Root is that Stem is the part of the plant body that is present above the soil, while the Root is the part of the plant body that is present below the ground.

Key Differences

Stems contain chlorophyll, whereas Roots are devoid of chlorophyll.
Stem originates from plumule, while Root originates from the radicle part of the embryo.
Janet White
Feb 17, 2020
The Stem is the part of the plant that is usually found above the soil, while Root is the part of a plant that is always found under the ground.
Buds are present on the Stem, but not on Roots.
Samantha Walker
Feb 17, 2020
Stems grow towards the direction of light on the flip side Roots grow away from the direction of light.
Janet White
Feb 17, 2020
Stems have leaves, nodes, and internodes, but Roots only have some multicellular hairs on them.
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Stems have a large diameter. On the other hand, Roots have a small diameter.
Aimie Carlson
Feb 17, 2020

Comparison Chart

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It grows above the soil.
It grows below the soil.

Origination

It arises from the plumule part of the embryo.
It arises from the radicle part of the embryo.

Chlorophyll

It contains chlorophyll.
It does not contain chlorophyll.

Phototropism

It usually tends to grow upward in the direction of light.
It usually tends to grow away from the direction of light.
Samantha Walker
Feb 17, 2020

Diameter

It has a large diameter.
It has a small diameter.
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Outgrowths

It bears leaves, nodes, and internodes.
It does not bear leaves, nodes, and internodes.
Aimie Carlson
Feb 17, 2020

Buds

Terminal and Axillary buds are present in Stems.
Terminal and Axillary bud is absent in Roots.
Janet White
Feb 17, 2020

Stem and Root Definitions

Stem

The main ascending part of a plant; a stalk or trunk.

Root

The usually underground portion of a plant that lacks buds, leaves, or nodes and serves as support, draws minerals and water from the surrounding soil, and sometimes stores food.

Stem

A slender stalk supporting or connecting another plant part, such as a leaf or flower.

Root

Any of various other underground plant parts, especially an underground stem such as a rhizome, corm, or tuber.
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Stem

A banana stalk bearing several bunches of bananas.

Root

The embedded part of an organ or structure such as a hair, tooth, or nerve, that serves as a base or support.

Stem

The tube of a tobacco pipe.

Root

The bottom or supporting part of something
We snipped the wires at the roots.

Stem

The slender upright support of a wineglass or goblet.

Root

The essential part or element; the basic core
I finally got to the root of the problem.

Stem

The small projecting shaft with an expanded crown by which a watch is wound.

Root

A primary source; an origin.

Stem

The rounded rod in the center of certain locks about which the key fits and is turned.

Root

A progenitor or ancestor from which a person or family is descended.

Stem

The shaft of a feather or hair.

Root

Often roots The condition of being settled and of belonging to a particular place or society
Our roots in this town go back a long way.

Stem

The upright stroke of a typeface or letter.

Root

Roots The state of having or establishing an indigenous relationship with or a personal affinity for a particular culture, society, or environment
Music with unmistakable African roots.

Stem

(Music) The vertical line extending from the head of a note.

Root

The element that carries the main component of meaning in a word and provides the basis from which a word is derived by adding affixes or inflectional endings or by phonetic change.

Stem

The main line of descent of a family.

Root

Such an element reconstructed for a protolanguage. Also called radical.

Stem

(Linguistics) The main part of a word to which affixes are added.

Root

A number that when multiplied by itself an indicated number of times forms a product equal to a specified number. For example, a fourth root of 4 is √2. Also called nth root.

Stem

(Nautical) The curved upright beam at the fore of a vessel into which the hull timbers are scarfed to form the prow.

Root

A number that reduces a polynomial equation in one variable to an identity when it is substituted for the variable.

Stem

The tubular glass structure mounting the filament or electrodes in an incandescent bulb or vacuum tube.

Root

A number at which a polynomial has the value zero.

Stem

To have or take origin or descent
Her success stems mostly from hard work.

Root

The note from which a chord is built.

Stem

To remove the stem of
Stemmed the apples.

Root

Such a note occurring as the lowest note of a triad or other chord.

Stem

To provide with a stem
Wine glasses that are stemmed.

Root

To grow roots or a root
Carrot tops will root in water.

Stem

To make headway against (a tide or current, for example).

Root

To become firmly established or settled
The idea of tolerance has rooted in our culture.

Stem

To stop or stanch (a flow)
Stemmed the bleeding.

Root

To plant and fix the roots of (a plant) in soil or the ground.

Stem

To restrain or stop
Wanted to stem the growth of government.

Root

To establish or settle firmly
Our love of the ocean has rooted us here.

Stem

To plug or tamp (a blast hole, for example).

Root

To be the source or origin of
"Much of [the team's] success was rooted in the bullpen" (Dan Shaughnessy).

Stem

(Sports) To turn (a ski, usually the uphill ski) by moving the heel outward.

Root

To dig or pull out by the roots. Often used with up or out
We rooted out the tree stumps with a tractor.

Stem

To stem a ski or both skis, as in making a turn.

Root

To remove or get rid of. Often used with out
"declared that waste and fraud will be vigorously rooted out of Government" (New York Times).

Stem

The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.

Root

To turn up by digging with the snout or nose
Hogs that rooted up acorns.

Stem

A branch of a family.

Root

To cause to appear or be known. Used with out
An investigation that rooted out the source of the problem.

Stem

An advanced or leading position; the lookout.

Root

To turn over the earth with the snout or nose.

Stem

(botany) The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.

Root

To search or rummage for something
Rooted around for a pencil in his cluttered office.

Stem

A slender supporting member of an individual part of a plant such as a flower or a leaf; also, by analogy, the shaft of a feather.
The stem of an apple or a cherry

Root

To give audible encouragement or applause to a contestant or team; cheer.

Stem

A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.

Root

To give moral support to someone; hope for a favorable outcome for someone
We'll be rooting for you when you take the exam.

Stem

(linguistics) The main part of an uninflected word to which affixes may be added to form inflections of the word. A stem often has a more fundamental root. Systematic conjugations and declensions derive from their stems.

Root

The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.
This tree's roots can go as deep as twenty metres underground.

Stem

(slang) A person's leg.

Root

A root vegetable.

Stem

(slang) The penis.

Root

The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.
Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing.

Stem

(typography) A vertical stroke of a letter.

Root

The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.
The root is the only part of the hair that is alive.

Stem

(music) A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.

Root

The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.
He dyed his hair black last month, so the grey roots can be seen.

Stem

(music) A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.

Root

(figurative) The primary source; origin.
The love of money is the root of all evil.

Stem

(nautical) The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.

Root

(aviation) The section of a wing immediately adjacent to the fuselage.

Stem

(cycling) A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.

Root

(engineering) The bottom of the thread of a threaded object.
The root diameter is the minor diameter of an external thread and the major diameter of an internal one.

Stem

(anatomy) A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.

Root

(arithmetic) Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.
The cube root of 27 is 3.

Stem

(slang) A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.

Root

(arithmetic) A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, "the root of" is often abbreviated to "root").
Multiply by root 2.

Stem

A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.

Root

(analysis) A zero (of an equation).

Stem

Alternative form of STEM

Root

The single node of a tree that has no parent.

Stem

A lesbian, chiefly African-American, exhibiting both stud and femme traits.

Root

(linguistic morphology) The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.

Stem

To remove the stem from.
To stem cherries; to stem tobacco leaves

Root

(philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.

Stem

To be caused or derived; to originate.
The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.

Root

(music) The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.

Stem

To descend in a family line.

Root

The lowest place, position, or part.

Stem

To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.

Root

(computing) In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.
I have to log in as root before I do that.

Stem

(obsolete) To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.

Root

(computing) The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.
I installed the files in the root directory.

Stem

To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole.

Root

(slang) A penis, especially the base of a penis.

Stem

(transitive) To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).
To stem a tide

Root

An act of sexual intercourse.
Fancy a root?

Stem

(skiing) To move the feet apart and point the tips of the skis inward in order to slow down the speed or to facilitate a turn.

Root

A sexual partner.

Stem

To gleam.
His head bald, that shone as any glass, . . . [And] stemed as a furnace of a leed [caldron].

Root

To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
The cuttings are starting to root.

Stem

To remove the stem or stems from; as, to stem cherries; to remove the stem and its appendages (ribs and veins) from; as, to stem tobacco leaves.

Root

To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings.
We rooted some cuttings last summer.

Stem

To ram, as clay, into a blasting hole.

Root

To be firmly fixed; to be established.

Stem

To oppose or cut with, or as with, the stem of a vessel; to resist, or make progress against; to stop or check the flow of, as a current.
[They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.
Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age.

Root

To get root or privileged access on a computer system or mobile phone, often through bypassing some security mechanism.
We rooted his box and planted a virus on it.
I want to root my Android phone so I can remove the preinstalled crapware.

Stem

To move forward against an obstacle, as a vessel against a current.
Stemming nightly toward the pole.

Root

(ambitransitive) To turn up or dig with the snout.
A pig roots the earth for truffles.

Stem

A gleam of light; flame.

Root

(by extension) To seek favour or advancement by low arts or grovelling servility; to fawn.

Stem

The principal body of a tree, shrub, or plant, of any kind; the main stock; the part which supports the branches or the head or top.
After they are shot up thirty feet in length, they spread a very large top, having no bough nor twig in the trunk or the stem.
The lowering spring, with lavish rain,Beats down the slender stem and breaded grain.

Root

(intransitive) To rummage; to search as if by digging in soil.
Rooting about in a junk-filled drawer

Stem

A little branch which connects a fruit, flower, or leaf with a main branch; a peduncle, pedicel, or petiole; as, the stem of an apple or a cherry.

Root

(intransitive) Of a baby: to turn the head and open the mouth in search of food.

Stem

The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
While I do pray, learn here thy stemAnd true descent.

Root

(transitive) To root out; to abolish.

Stem

A branch of a family.
This is a stemOf that victorious stock.

Root

To sexually penetrate.

Stem

A curved piece of timber to which the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end. The lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon its upper end. Hence, the forward part of a vessel; the bow.

Root

To cheer (on); to show support (for) and hope for the success of. See root for.
I'm rooting for you, don't let me down!

Stem

Fig.: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.

Root

To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine.

Stem

Anything resembling a stem or stalk; as, the stem of a tobacco pipe; the stem of a watch case, or that part to which the ring, by which it is suspended, is attached.

Root

Hence, to seek for favor or advancement by low arts or groveling servility; to fawn servilely.

Stem

That part of a plant which bears leaves, or rudiments of leaves, whether rising above ground or wholly subterranean.

Root

To turn up or to dig out with the snout; as, the swine roots the earth.

Stem

The entire central axis of a feather.

Root

To fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
In deep grounds the weeds root deeper.

Stem

The short perpendicular line added to the body of a note; the tail of a crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.

Root

To be firmly fixed; to be established.
If any irregularity chanced to intervene and to cause misappehensions, he gave them not leave to root and fasten by concealment.

Stem

The part of an inflected word which remains unchanged (except by euphonic variations) throughout a given inflection; theme; base.

Root

To shout for, or otherwise noisly applaud or encourage, a contestant, as in sports; hence, to wish earnestly for the success of some one or the happening of some event, with the superstitious notion that this action may have efficacy; - usually with for; as, the crowd rooted for the home team.

Stem

(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed;
Thematic vowels are part of the stem

Root

To plant and fix deeply in the earth, or as in the earth; to implant firmly; hence, to make deep or radical; to establish; - used chiefly in the participle; as, rooted trees or forests; rooted dislike.

Stem

A slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ

Root

To tear up by the root; to eradicate; to extirpate; - with up, out, or away.
The Lord rooted them out of their land . . . and cast them into another land.

Stem

Cylinder forming a long narrow part of something

Root

The underground portion of a plant, whether a true root or a tuber, a bulb or rootstock, as in the potato, the onion, or the sweet flag.

Stem

The tube of a tobacco pipe

Root

An edible or esculent root, especially of such plants as produce a single root, as the beet, carrot, etc.; as, the root crop.

Stem

Front part of a vessel or aircraft;
He pointed the bow of the boat toward the finish line

Root

That which resembles a root in position or function, esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like.
They were the roots out of which sprang two distinct people.

Stem

A turn made in skiing; the back of one ski is forced outward and the other ski is brought parallel to it

Root

A primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical.
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

Stem

Grow out of, have roots in, originate in;
The increase in the national debt stems from the last war

Root

The time which to reckon in making calculations.
When a root is of a birth yknowe [known].

Stem

Cause to point inward;
Stem your skis

Root

That factor of a quantity which when multiplied into itself will produce that quantity; thus, 3 is a root of 9, because 3 multiplied into itself produces 9; 3 is the cube root of 27.

Stem

Stop the flow of a liquid;
Staunch the blood flow
Them the tide

Root

The lowest place, position, or part.

Stem

Remove the stem from;
For automatic natural language processing, the words must be stemmed

Root

(botany) the usually underground organ that lacks buds or leaves or nodes; absorbs water and mineral salts; usually it anchors the plant to the ground

Root

(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed;
Thematic vowels are part of the stem

Root

The place where something begins, where it springs into being;
The Italian beginning of the Renaissance
Jupiter was the origin of the radiation
Pittsburgh is the source of the Ohio River
Communism's Russian root

Root

A number that when multiplied by itself some number of times equals a given number

Root

The set of values that give a true statement when substituted into an equation

Root

Someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)

Root

A simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes

Root

The part of a tooth that is embedded in the jaw and serves as support

Root

Take root and begin to grow;
This plant roots quickly

Root

Come into existence, originate;
The problem roots in her depression

Root

Plant by the roots

Root

Dig with the snout;
The pig was rooting for truffles

Root

Take sides with; align oneself with; show strong sympathy for;
We all rooted for the home team
I'm pulling for the underdog
Are you siding with the defender of the title?

Root

Become settled or established and stable in one's residence or life style;
He finally settled down

Root

Cause to take roots

Stem vs. Root

Stem lies above the ground level. Roots lie underground. The shoot is the portion of Stem which bears leaves, whereas roots don’t bear leaves. The Stem is also known as the central bone or basic structure of the plant body. The Root is known as the heart of the plant, which supplies it with water minerals and nutrients.

The Stem takes water and other minerals from the roots and delivers it to all the parts of the plant. Roots anchor the plant; they spread themselves in the soil to absorb water and minerals and transfer them to the Stem, leaves, and other parts of the plant through vascular bundles.

During the process of seed germination, the Stem arises from the plumule, while the roots originate from radicals. A stem may be present under the ground, but a root can’t lie above the soil surface.

What is Stem?

The Stem is the central portion of the primary axis of the plant, which develops from the plumule. The leaf-bearing Stem is known as shoot. A branch is also a shoot. The part of the Stem from which a leaf arises is called a Node. The portion between two successive nodes is termed as Internode.

Stems can be Annuals (one growing season), Biennials (two growing seasons), and Perennials (for several years). Stems may be aerial such as climbers or trailers. Underground stems like rhizome superficially look like Root, but they can be recognized by distinguishing features.

Layers of Stem

  • Epidermis: The outer part of the Stem that provides stability and acts as a shield from wind and rain.
  • Phloem: It is transport tubes of the plants, moves stable molecules from one part of the plant to another section.
  • Xylem: It is like phloem, but instead of transporting foods, it carries water and dissolved minerals from roots.

What is Root?

The Root is the cylindrical plant organ, which arises from the radicle. It does not bear leaves or nodes. It is covered at its tip by the root cap. The Root contains hairs that aids in the absorption of water and minerals from the soil. Their main functions are to anchor the plant, store food, provide shelter to nitrogen-fixing bacteria, provide extra support to the plant, for which the roots undergo various types of modifications.

Roots bend in the direction of temperature that is most favorable for growth and tends to grow in the course of moisture supply. When a seed germinates, the embryonic root (radicle) gradually elongate and form the Primary Root.

Layers of Root

  • Epidermis: It is only one-celled thick. This phenomenon increases in some plants due to the presence of root hairs, which are small extensions of the skin.
  • Endodermis: It is a tightly packed layer act as transport balance between cortex and vascular cylinder.
  • Vascular Cylinder: It is inside of endodermis and pericycle surrounds it. The pericycle is a layer of cells that initiates the growth of branch roots. Xylem and phloem cells are present that transport water and food.

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