https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-025-00543-x
Research - Flowing Matter
Effect of conduit friction and presence of charged species on rise of xylem sap
Complex Systems and Soft Matter Physics Lab, Centre for Applied Sciences, International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B), 26/C, Electronics City Phase 1, Hosur Road, 560100, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
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Received:
29
September
2025
Accepted:
28
November
2025
Published online:
21
January
2026
We study water uptake in plants by modelling the xylem as a narrow capillary tube through which sap rises under transpiration pull. We modify the classical Bosanquet equation, incorporating the effect of friction f, arising from xylem wall protrusions, while including corrections to the surface tension due to the presence of ions in the sap and due to local curvature via the Tolman correction. We also take into consideration an externally imposed transpiration flux. We identify a dimensionless tuning parameter, 
, that is a relative measure of capillary to hydrostatic forces that, along with f, affects system behaviour. In the absence of transpiration, transitions between oscillatory and non-oscillatory behavior of the sap column depends on , while its rate of rise depends on f. We find that the addition of transpiration to the xylem capillary system, by considering diffusion and evaporation at the leaves, causes the system to instead stabilize around a nonlinear center, also crucially increasing the maximal height to which the water rises. We obtain scaling power-laws for the time required for the sap to reach to reach its maximum height, and the characteristic time scale for oscillations in the column to decay to its fixed point, as functions, respectively, of f and of . We investigate the competitive effects of transpiration pull and presence of corrugation in the conduits. Our approach integrates capillary flow physics with dynamical systems theory to uncover new insights and get a more comprehensive and novel understanding of the problem of water transport in plants.
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Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
