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In plants, the transpiration stream is the uninterrupted stream of water and solutes which is taken up by the roots and transported via the xylem to the leaves where it evaporates into the air/apoplast-interface of the substomatal cavity. It is driven by capillary action and in some plants by root pressure.
Although several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how sap moves through the xylem, the cohesion-tension mechanism [1] has the most support. Although cohesion-tension has received criticism due to the apparent existence of large negative pressures in some living plants, experimental and observational data favor this mechanism. [2] [3]
The forces of cohesion and adhesion cause the water molecules to form a column in the xylem. Water moves from the xylem into the mesophyll cells, evaporates from their surfaces and leaves the plant by diffusion through the stomata
Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or surfaces to cling to one another. (Cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles and surfaces to cling to one another.) The forces that cause adhesion and cohesion can be divided into several types.
Different plant species can have different root pressures even in a similar environment; examples include up to 145 kPa in Vitis riparia but around zero in Celastrus orbiculatus. [13] The primary force that creates the capillary action movement of water upwards in plants is the adhesion between the water and the surface of the xylem conduits.
This phenomenon is important in transpirational pull in plants. When a tube of a narrow bore, often called a capillary tube, is dipped into a liquid and the liquid wets the tube (with zero contact angle), the liquid surface inside the tube forms a concave meniscus, which is a virtually spherical surface having the same radius, r , as the inside ...
According to cohesion-tension theory, water transport in xylem relies upon the cohesion of water molecules to each other and adhesion to the vessel's wall via hydrogen bonding combined with the high water pressure of the plant's substrate and low pressure of the extreme tissues (usually leaves).
The pressure flow hypothesis, also known as the mass flow hypothesis, is the best-supported theory to explain the movement of sap through the phloem of plants. [1] [2] It was proposed in 1930 by Ernst Münch, a German plant physiologist. [3]