How does water get to the top of 200 foot trees?

Question

Atmospheric pressure only supports a column of water ~34 feet, so atmospheric pressure is not how water reaches the top of the tree.

Answer 1

What makes water climb trees is still somewhat of a mystery. But scientists think it all depends on the special properties of water, and on the fact that the tubes are porous and very narrow.

As the tubes spread out into the leaves, heat from the sun evaporates the water molecules at the top. Because water tends to climb a short way up the walls of certain substances (like drinking glasses, for instance), the next molecules in line move up after those that evaporate.

Water molecules always hold tightly together, and when they're squished into very narrow tubes, they grip even more tightly, with enough strength to pull all the following water molecules along behind them. So as the molecules at the top move up, the whole chain moves up the tree. This only works, however, if the tubes are full of liquid to begin with, so trees and other plants have liquid-filled tubes from their earliest days as seedlings.

Answer 2

The water that evaporates from leaves at the top is connected by water channels from the top to bottom of the tree. "Water molecules have tremendous cohesive forces that allow them to hold together under the negative pressures that develop in the xylem when water evaporates from the stomatal pores in leaves." This tension pulls the water up through the channels from the roots to the leaves.

Answer 3

Water travels up trees due to the cohesive properties of water. Hydrogen molecules are attracted to each other, and when hydrogen is bonded with oxygen to make water then water molecules are in effect sticking to each other. This creates the effect of water travelling "up" a tree.

Answer 4

from the soil up thru the trunk and branches

Answer 5

By the rain or may be the birds....

Answer 6

capillary action