Root meristem controls The plant meristem, a small cluster of stem cells generates all of the cell types necessary for the plant’s indeterminate growth pattern. Roszak et al . use single-cell analyses to follow development from the stem cell to the enucleated cell of the phloem vasculature. In the root of the small mustard plant Arabidopsis , this process takes just over 3 days, and the developmental trajectory spans more than a dozen different cell states. A transcriptional program initially held under repressive control is released as those initial repressors dissipate. Reciprocal repression by regulators early and late in the developmental trajectory control a rapid switch in the differentiation program. —PJH