Plants

Plants use a special tissue called phloem to transports sap a sticky solution that contains sugars, water,
minerals, amino acids, and plant hormones. Sap moves through phloem via translocation, the transport of
dissolved materials in a plant. Unlike the xylem, which can only carry water upward, phloem carries sap
upward and downward, from sugar sources to sugar sinks:
Sugar sources are plant organs such as leaves that produce sugars.
Sugar sinks are plant organs such as roots, tubers (underground stems), and bulbs (swollen leaves)
that consume or store sugars.
Scientists call their explanation for how translocation works in a plants phloem the pressure-flow
hypothesis. The figure illustrates this hypothesis, the steps of which are:
1. Sugars, produced within sugar sources, are loaded into phloem cells called sieve tube
elements, creating a high concentration of solutes within the sieve tube elements.
2. Water enters the sieve tube elements by osmosis.
During osmosis, water moves into the areas with the highest concentration of solutes (in this case,
sugars).
3. The inflow of water increases turgor pressure at the source, causing the movement of water
and carbohydrates through the sieve tube elements toward a sugar sink. (Turgor pressure is
pressure from the fluid within the plant cell that pushes against the plant cell wall.)
You can think of this step like turning on a water nozzle that is connected to a garden hose. As water
flows from the tank into the hose, it pushes the water in front of it down the hose.
4. Sugars are removed from cells at the sugar sink, keeping the concentration of sugars low.
As a sugar sink receives water and carbohydrates, turgor pressure builds. However, before the sugar
sink can turn into a sugar source, carbohydrates in the sink are actively transported out of the sink
and into needy plant cells. As the carbohydrates are removed, the water then follows the solutes and
diffuses out of the cell, relieving the pressure.
Sugar sinks that store carbohydrates can become sugar sources for plants when the plants need
sugar. Starch, a complex carbohydrate, is insoluble in water, so it acts as a carbohydrate storage
molecule. Whenever a plant needs sugar, like at night or in the winter when photosynthesis doesnt occur
as well, the plant can break down its starches into simple sugars, which allows a tissue that would normally
be a sugar sink to become a sugar source.
Because plant cells can act as both sinks and sources, and because phloem transport goes both upward and
downward, plants are pretty good at spreading the wealth of carbohydrates and fluid to where the plant
needs them. As long as a plant has a continuous incoming source of minerals, water, carbon dioxide, and
light, it can fend for itself.