Soil plant atmosphere continuum Soil plant atmosphere continuum The soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC) is the pathway for water moving from soil through plants to the atmosphere. Continuum in the description highlights the continuous nature of water connection through the pathway. The low water potential of the atmosphere, and relatively higher (i.e. less negative) water potential inside leaves, leads to a diffusion gradient across the stomatal pores of leaves, drawing water out of the leaves as vapour. As water vapour transpires out of the leaf, further water molecules evaporate off the surface of mesophyll cells to replace the lost molecules since water in the air inside
Vascular plant and transported throughout the plant by the xylem. Organic compounds such as sucrose produced by photosynthesis in leaves are distributed by the phloem sieve tube elements. The xylem consists of vessels in flowering plants and tracheids in other vascular plants, which are dead hard-walled hollow cells arranged to form files of tubes that function in water transport. A tracheid cell wall usually contains the polymer lignin. The phloem however consists of living cells called sieve-tube members. Between the sieve-tube members are sieve plates, which have pores to allow molecules to pass through. Sieve-tube members lack such organs as nuclei or