
thumb|Ranunculus Root Cross Section The endodermis is the innermost layer of cortex in vascular plants. It is a cylinder of compact living cells, the radial walls of which are impregnated with hydrophobic substances (Casparian strip) to restrict apoplastic flow of water to the inside. The endodermis is the boundary between the cortex and the stele.
thumb|Ranunculus Root Cross Section The endodermis is the innermost layer of cortex in vascular plants. It is a cylinder of compact living cells, the radial walls of which are impregnated with hydrophobic substances (Casparian strip) to restrict apoplastic flow of water to the inside. The endodermis is the boundary between the cortex and the stele.
In many seedless plants, such as ferns, the endodermis is a distinct layer of cells immediately outside the vascular cylinder (stele) in roots and shoots. In most seed plants, especially woody types, the endodermis is present in roots but not in stems.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).