Definition of "phloem" []

• The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids. Also called bast. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "After a female borer lays its eggs on an ash tree, the larvae burrow through the bark and feed on vascular tissue called the phloem, cutting off the tree's supply of nutrients and starving it to death."
• "In dicots the phloem is a distinct layer separated from the xylem by a thin layer of cambial tissue"
• "There is a ring of small cambium cells around this merging into the phloem, which is composed of irregular cells, with pretty thick, but soft walls."