• thickness ranging from 0.1 micrometre to several micrometres. • a non-living component located outside the cell membrane and is generally not consider to be part of protoplasm, though it is a secretory product of the cell. • determines the cell shape and provides protection and support to the plant cell. Structures of the cell wall • The main structural components of cell walls are bundles of cellulose molecules known as microfibrils. • Each microfibril bundle consists of aproximately 2000 extremely long cellulose molecules. • Each individual cellulose molecule is composed of about 3000 glucose residues condensed together. • The cellulose microfibrils are cemented and held together by a matrix of pectin and hemicellulose. • The spaces between the fibrils are not entirely filled with matrix which making the cell wall permeable. • The wall does not determine which materials can enter the cell and which cannot. The function is reserved for the plasma membrane located below the cell wall. • The mature plant cell wall has made up of many layers. The first portion of the cell wall is the primary wall(formed as long as the cell continues to grow). • The fibrils that form the primary wall run in all directions and form a rather loose network which makes the primary wall elastic and allows stretching during cell grow. • The middle lamella that binds the walls of two cells together is a sticky, jellylike layer of pectin, generally present in the form of calcium and magnesium pectates. • When a fruit ripens, pectin deserves and the cell become less tightly bound to one another. It is this loosely arranged cells that make a ripening fruit become softer. • The cell of soft tissues of plants have only primary walls and intercellular middle lamellae. • After growth stops, cells eventually form harder, more woody portions of the plant by depositing further layers of cellulose fibrils on the primary cell wall forming the secondary wall. • Secondary wall is deposited by the protoplasm, located outside the plasma membrane but on the outside of the primary wall formed earlier. Essentially, the secondary cell wall is inserted between the plasma membrane and primary wall. • The secondary cell wall is much thicker than the primary cell wall and is composed by lamellae. • The cellulose microfibrils in each lamella lie parallel to each other, tightly packed and are generally oriented at angles of 60-90 degrees to the fibrils of the adjacent of lamellae. This arrangement gives added strength to the cell wall. • Secondary cell walls contain lignin, which make them even stiffer and impermeable to water. • When the secondary wall is completed, many cells die leaving the hard tube formed by the walls to function as a mechanical and internal supports. • Plant cell walls do not form completely and uninterrupted boundaries around the cells. There are often tiny holes in the wall through which cytoplasmic connections between adjacent cells may run. These connections are called plasmodesmata. • Plasmodesmata is a narrow channels as intercellular cytoplasmic bridge to facilitate communication and transport of materials between plant cells. • The wall is not thickened further, and depressions or thin areas known as pits are formed in the walls. Pits normally pair up between adjacent cells • Plasmodesmata permit direct cell-cell communication through the cell wall.