A very basic overview of water through a flowering plant starts at the roots. The roots absorb water and dissolved minerals from the soil. The roots exchange gases with the air spaces of soil, taking in oxygen and discharging carbon dioxide. This gas exchange supports the cellular respiration of root cells. Water and mineral are transported upward within the xylem, from the roots into the shoot system. Transpiration from the evaporation of water from leaves (mostly through the stomata) creates a force within leaves that pulls xylem sap upward. Leaves also an exchange gas through the stomata taking in carbon dioxide that provides carbon for photosynthesis and expelling oxygen. Sugar is produced by photosynthesis in the leaves and is transported within the phloem to roots and other nonphotosynthetic parts of the plant.

Most absorption of water and minerals occurs near root tips, where the epidermis is permeable to water and where root hairs are located. Root hairs account or provide for most of the surface area of

Food translocation and water transport follow the same pathway to spread minerals and water throughout the plant. There is two main systems short distance transport and long distance transport. Through routes are usually available for short distance transport. The two most important being the symplast and the apoplast. The symplast is the continuum of the cytoplasm within a plant tissue, requiring only one crossing of the plasma membrane. After entering a cell food and water can move from one cell to the next with the plasmodesmata, the cytoplasmic channels that connect cells through pores in cell walls. The apoplast system is the extracellular pathway consisting of cell walls. Before even entering a cell, water and food can move from one location to the next within a root or other organ along the byways provided by the continuum of the cell walls. In long distance transport of water and food diffusion is too slow of a process. Water and solutes move through the xylem vessels and sieve tubes by bulk flow, which is a movement of fluid by pressure. In the phloem hydrostatic pressure is generated at one end of the sieve tube and this forces the sap to the opposite end of the tube. The total main transport system goes from soil to the epidermis to the root cortex to the stele.

roots. The hairs adhere tightly to soil particles, which are usually coated with water and dissolved minerals. The soil solution flows into the hydrophilic walls of the epidermal cells and passes freely along the apoplast into the root cortex. This exposes the cells of the cortex called the parenchyma cells the soil solution. So the membrane for the uptake of water and minerals has greatly increased into the cytoplasm than the surface area of the epidermis alone. As the soil solution moves along the cell walls, some of the water and the cells of the epidermis and cortex take up solutes, this is where the pathways switch from the apoplast to the symplast. In the crossing of plasma membrane that makes mineral absorption selective. The soil solution is usually very dilute, and the roots can accumulate essential minerals to concentrations of these minerals in soil.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Casparian Strip, CAM Mesophyll, , carbon dioxide, water minerals, cell walls, guard cells, distance transport, soil solution, mesophyll cells, flowering plant, dissolved minerals, water dissolved minerals, minerals soil, carbon dioxide air, pathway xylem pathway, short distance transport, dissolved minerals soil,
Approximate Word count = 2256
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)