By Myre Adnan

 Water is vital to plants, as much of the cellular activities occur in the presence of water molecules and the internal temperature of the plant is regulated by water. Plants need to transform Water and Carbon Dioxide into Glucose and Oxygen for photosynthesis, which proves how important water is for plants.

 Firstly, the water enters the ground when it rains and moves through the earth in the direction of the fine root hairs. The root hairs are very fine and because of this, through the process of osmosis, they can absorb the water.

 Roughly 90% of the water that enters the plant is lost because of transpiration. Transpiration is the loss of water from the plant. Water leaves the plant through the stomata in the leaf. The rate of transpiration is affected by four things; amount of light, temperature, amount of air movement and the humidity.

 The overall movement of water through the plant is determined by the sum of osmotic potential and hydrostatic pressure. Osmosis is the movement of water molecules from where they are in high concentrations to where they are in low concentrations.

 Xylem is one of two types of transport tissue in vascular plants, the other being Phloem. While phloem is responsible for transporting other materials, Xylem’s basic function is to transport water through the plant. After water enters the hair roots through osmosis, the movement of water from the hair roots to the neighboring cells is through an opening on the cell walls known as plasmodesmata, until eventually it ends up in the Xylem. Xylem acts as the highway which transports water in the plant to where it is required.

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