Plant-water relations

Article By:

Meyer, Bernard S. Department of Botany, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

Last reviewed:March 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.525300

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• Plant-water relations, published June 2015:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

The relationships between plants and water, including the hydration of plant cells and the transport of water within a plant. Water is the most abundant constituent of all physiologically active plant cells. Leaves, for example, have water contents that lie mostly within a range of 55–85% of their fresh weight. Other relatively succulent parts of plants contain approximately the same proportion of water, and even such largely nonliving tissues as wood may be 30–60% water on a fresh-weight basis. The smallest water contents in the living parts of plants occur mostly in dormant structures, such as mature seeds and spores. The great bulk of the water in any plant constitutes a unit system. This water is not in a static condition. Rather it is part of a hydrodynamic system (Fig. 1), which in terrestrial plants involves absorption of water from the soil, its translocation throughout the plant, and its loss to the environment, principally in the process known as transpiration. See also: Plant; Plant cell; Plant tissue systems; Water

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