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Plants

Transpiration

Transpiration
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   9.02

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    availability, photosynthesis, humidity, atmosphere, intensity, vapor, rates, widely, already, environment, roots, liquid, space, vary, such, stems

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Transpiration
By Cindy Grigg 		  
1     You already know that plants need water to live, and you know that plants get water through their roots from the soil around them. But how does a tree move the water and other minerals taken in by its roots to its trunk, branches, and leaves?
 
2     Trees belong to a group of plants called vascular plants. Vascular tissue forms long, narrow tubes that transport water and dissolved nutrients throughout the plant. A tree has networks of vascular tissue that go to every part of the tree. You can see this vascular tissue in a green leaf. The veins that branch through a leaf are vascular tissue.
 
3     Vascular tissue allows water and nutrients taken in at the roots to move all the way to the top of a plant. Less than five percent of the water taken in by a plant is used by the plant to perform photosynthesis and other life processes. The rest of the water evaporates or becomes a gas called water vapor. If you have ever looked at trees in the distance after a rain, you might have seen clouds of water vapor rising from them. This process involving the evaporation of water in a plant's stems, leaves, and other parts is called transpiration.

Paragraphs 4 to 5:
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