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Bronchial tree
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The bronchial tree is the system of tubes that distributes air inside the lung, and the name fits because it branches just like a tree, only upside down. The trunk is the trachea, the tube the air travels down, and at a certain point in the chest it splits into two main bronchi, one for each lung.
From there on, everything is division. Each main bronchus gives off lobar bronchi, one for each lobe of the lung, the large portions each lung is divided into. Those split into segmental bronchi, and after that the caliber keeps shrinking across a great many generations of bronchioles, the thinnest tubes of all.
The route has a boundary. Up to the terminal bronchiole, the whole route is the conducting zone: tubes that only carry air in and out, like the hallways of a house. The respiratory bronchioles that arise past that point open into the alveolar ducts and the alveolar sacs, the end of the line.
In brief
The bronchial tree is the branching network that distributes air inside the lung: the trachea is the trunk, and it splits into two main bronchi, one per lung.
An upside-down tree: a trunk that splits into ever finer branches.
Each main bronchus divides into lobar bronchi, one per lobe, and those into segmental bronchi; then come 20 to 25 generations of bronchioles.
Terminal bronchioles end the conducting zone; the respiratory bronchioles that arise from them open into the alveolar sacs.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingAnatomy, Thorax, Bronchial, StatPearlsPublished
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