Question

I am familiar with how plants transport water from the roots to leaves. Specifically, Water evaporates from the leaf surface, generating a negative pressure gradient which pulls water up from the root. What is unclear to me, is how water is transported to the shoot apical meristem of a seedling, where there is no leaf above it (see red arrow on image attached). Are there stomata on the shootapical meristem from which the water can evaporate? Or is there some other mechanism which transports water up here?

Answer 1

Water is transported to the shoot apical meristem through capillary action, using the cohesion and adhesion properties of water molecules. The shoot apical meristem does not have stomata, but water is still able to reach this region through the xylem vessels. This process is explained by the cohesion-tension theory of sap ascent.

Step-by-step explanation:

When it comes to water transport in plants, the shoot apical meristem plays an important role in upward water movement. Although there are no stomata on the shoot apical meristem, water is still transported to this region through a process called capillary action. Capillary action is the ability of water to move upwards in narrow spaces, such as the xylem vessels in plants. This occurs because of the cohesion and adhesion properties of water molecules. The cohesion-tension theory explains how water is pulled up from the roots to the shoot apical meristem, where it is then distributed to the rest of the plant.