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Quote from: YourUncleBob on Today at 03:03:06Thanks Andrew,I'm siding with you with regards to what happens to all the heavy minerals at the tops of the trees. I know that you're not a fan of the theory that says it's osmosis that provides the main power for lifting water to the tops of the trees, but to give your ideas more solidity we need to let the advocates of osmosis explain away the accumulation of these solutes at the tops of trees!Any ideas on how the leaves prevent oxygen entering the tree's plumbing while letting out the larger water molecules?
Andrew big thanks for your useful links,However looking carefully at the inner structure of the leaf it seems the gases are exchanged in the fleshy middle and are kept away from the incoming water/solute loaded veins.kind Regards Blaine
Reducing the pressure at the leaf would undoubtedly assist gas exchange. tension = reduced pressure = efficient gas exchange
That's surface tension - not internal tension. It's a feature of the asymmetry of forces at an interface - as you know, it is a very small force.If it exists, it is amazing that it hasn't been used in some useful machine.