Ethanol in the stems of trees

Acetaldehyde and ethanol are usually thought to be produced in plant tissues as a mechanism to tolerate hypoxic conditions. We have found acetaldehyde and ethanol to be common in the vascular cambium and in the transpiration stream of trees. In nonflooded trees, acetaldehyde and ethanol concentrations averaged 130 and 40 μ M in the cambium and 130 and 50 μ M in the xylem sap, respectively. Ethanol concentrations in the transpiration stream and the cambium increased to as much as 5 m M upon flooding. Ethanol concentrations in the vascular cambium of Populus deltoides could not be eliminated by placing logs from nonflooded trees in a pure oxygen environment for as long as 96 h, but increased by almost 3 orders of magnitude when logs were exposed to low external partial pressures of O₂. These results suggest that the vascular cambium was not hypoxic, despite the presence of acetaldehyde, ethanol and the enzymes for their synthesis.