We sweat after a hard day’s labour. Sweating is a way to control the heat of our body. What do plants do when they have excessive heat? Scientists say that plants sweat too, although not the way we do.
Plants release water from their leaves incessantly. However, this may not be visible to us. If you cover a plant with a plastic bag, you will see droplets of water formed on the leaves. These droplets are, in fact, the sweat of the plant. Sometimes, people mistake the water found on the leaves of plants in the morning as dew drops. In fact, the plant was sweating during the night. The process of a plant’s sweating is known as transpiration.
During transpiration, plants expel water through the tiny pores on their leaves called stomata. These pores can close and open in order to control the loss of water in a plant. Sometimes, the amount of water that a plant releases can be very high. It is said that, over a growing season, corn growing in one acre of land may transpire 15100 litres of water!
Picture Credit : Google