Mosses have no xylem vessels or phloem vessels to transport water. Mosses are always very short plants, usuall

Question

only growing only a few cm above the ground. Explain why a lack of transport vessels prevents moss from growing tall.

Answer 1

Two reasons:
1. They have to transport food and water from cell to cell by diffusion. This is slow and doesn't work well in a tall plant - keeps them short.
2. Xylem is the sturdy tissue that helps support tall plants. Without xylem, they can't hold themselves up much higher.

Answer 2

Mosses love damp wet dark conditions and they are known to be ground coverage plants on rocks near streams for example, so their really is no need to be tall. Natural selection has made them this way and for hundred's or years its been working.

So essentially having a lack of transport vessels does not prevent them from growing tall. Genetically this is the way they are made.

Answer 3

the answer is technically in the question... without transport vessels there is no way for the plant to defy gravity to get nutrients to itself.