Biology · Ch 6 — Plant Water Relation
Introduction
Introduction
Can you recall?
- Which are the various parts of the plant body?
- What are the functions of the various parts of the plant body?
- Which plant tissues are involved in the transport of water and minerals?
Use your brain power
You know that we need a water pump to lift water to the top of a building. But how do plants lift water from the soil up to the canopy without any pump?
A plant obtains a variety of substances from its surroundings - water, minerals, nutrients, food and gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide - and of these it is the availability of water that most often limits productivity.
Water is rightly called the 'elixir of life': it makes up almost 90 to 95 per cent of most plant cells and tissues, and it keeps cells turgid and in shape. The properties described in 6.1 give it its great biological importance. (The MSBSHSE syllabus for this chapter covers the same ground as the NCERT/CBSE Class 11 chapter on transport in plants, so the vocabulary used here serves both.)