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A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue and thus has a hard stem. In cold climates, woody plants further survive winter or dry season above ground, as opposed to Herbaceous plant plants that die back to the ground until spring.
Woody plants, like Herbaceous plant perennials, typically have a Dormancy of the year when growth does not take place. This occurs in temperate and continental due to freezing temperatures and lack of daylight during the winter months. Meanwhile, dormancy in Subtropics and Tropical climate climates is due to the dry season; when low precipitation limits water available for growth. The dormant period will be accompanied by abscission (if the plant is deciduous). Evergreen plants do not lose all their leaves at once (they instead shed them gradually over the growing season), however growth virtually halts during the dormant season. Many woody plants native to the subtropics and tropics are evergreen due to year-round warm temperatures and rainfall. However, in many regions with a tropical savanna climate or a monsoon subtropical climate, a lengthy dry season precludes evergreen vegetation, instead promoting the predominance of deciduous trees.
During the Autumn months, each Plant stem in a deciduous plant cuts off the Phloem and Transpiration to the leaves. This causes them to change colors as the chlorophyll in the Leaf breaks down. Special cells are formed that sever the connection between the leaf and stem, so that it will easily detach. Evergreen plants do not shed their leaves, merely go into a state of low activity during the dormant season (in order to acclimate to Cold or Dry season). During spring, the Root begin sending Nutrient back up to the canopy.
When the growing season resumes, either with warm weather or the wet season, the plant will break bud by sending out new leaf or flower growth. This is accompanied by growth of new stems from buds on the previous season's wood. In colder climates, most stem growth occurs during spring and early summer. When the dormant season begins, the new growth hardens off and becomes woody. Once this happens, the stem will never grow in length again, however it will keep expanding in diameter for the rest of the plant's life.
Most woody plants native to colder climates have distinct produced by each year's production of new vascular tissue. Only the outer handful of rings contain living tissue (the cambium, xylem, phloem, and sapwood). Inner layers have heartwood, dead tissue that serves merely as structural support.
Terminal buds have a stronger dominance on conifers than broadleaf plants, thus conifers will normally grow a single straight trunk without forking or large side or lateral branches.
As a woody plant grows, it will often lose lower leaves and branch as they become shaded out by the canopy (biology). If a given stem is producing an insufficient amount of energy for the plant, the roots will "abort" it by cutting off the flow of transpiration and phloem, causing it to gradually die.
Soil, the root system expands each growing season in much the same manner as the Plant stem. The roots grow in length and send out smaller lateral roots. At the end of the growing season, the newly grown roots become woody and cease future length expansion, but will continue to expand in diameter. However, unlike the above-ground portion of the plant, the root system continues to grow, although at a slower rate, throughout the dormant season. In cold-weather climates, root growth will continue as long as temperatures are above .
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