Next to a plant's sugar pipes are plump, living cells that grab extra food and save it for later. They are the phloem's storage rooms.
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The phloem (say it: FLOW-em) carries sugar around a plant. Packed in with the sugar pipes are soft, roundish cells called phloem parenchyma (say it: pa-RENK-ih-ma) cells.
They are alive, with a nucleus and thin walls. They are shorter and fatter than the pipe cells beside them.
Press Store food on the 3D model to see starch grains fill up the cells.
Phloem parenchyma cells store things the plant needs, like starch (a way of saving sugar), and sometimes fats or other useful stuff.
They also help move sugar and water sideways, between the pipes and the cells around them. When the plant needs extra food, the stored starch can be turned back into sugar.
Starch is the same stuff that fills a potato. Plants save a lot of their food this way!