Unlike the giraffe, the length of the limbs is due to the elongation of their upper segments, and that of the neck to the lengthening of only the hinder vertebrae.
This order can be traced with certainty back to the early Jurassic epoch, while the Permian fossil Eugereon, and the living order - specially modified in many respects - of the Thysanoptera indicate steps by which the aberrant suctorial and piercing mouth of the Hemiptera may have been developed from the biting mouth of primitive Isopteroids, by the elongation of some parts and the suppression of others.
In other cases this growing-point becomes active at once, there being little or no elongation of the hypocotyl and tbe cotyledon or cotyledons remaining in the seed.
It may be due to insufficient illumination (Etiolation), as seen in geraniums kept in too shaded a situation, and is then accompanied by soft tissues, elongation of internodes, leaves usually reduced in size, &c. The laying of wheat is a particular case.
The formation of the conducting tubes or secretory sacs which occur in all parts of the higher plants is due either to the elongation of single cells or to the fusion of cells together in rows by the absorption of the cell-walls separating them.