Plants can protect their wood from infection and water loss by forming special structures called “tyloses.” These prevent bacterial and fungal pathogens from getting into the heartwood of living trees and damaging it. How early in the evolution of plants the woody species became capable of forming such defenses was not previously known.
Click here for original story, 360-million-year-old Irish fossil provides oldest evidence of plant self-defense in wood
Source: Phys.org