>The rain falls from the sky. Save for a few very large trees that actually reach into the water table, trees well inland rely solely on the rain for their supply of water.
But they draw up that rain from the local soil using transpiration as I was explaining to my 4yo yesterday, I'm pretty sure he'll have forgotten it by now, I digress.
What I'm not sure about is rainwater capture - do shrubs capture (internally) water higher up the plant (eg in at limb connections) or are leaves simply directing the water to fall close to the "trunk" to maximise root take-up.
It's a good catch though as I'm sure I'd fall to the leap from knowing that "trees grow by taking in CO2 and that is where they get their mass of carbon from" to the false assumption that "tree mass comes primarily from the air" without really thinking about it.
But they draw up that rain from the local soil using transpiration as I was explaining to my 4yo yesterday, I'm pretty sure he'll have forgotten it by now, I digress.
What I'm not sure about is rainwater capture - do shrubs capture (internally) water higher up the plant (eg in at limb connections) or are leaves simply directing the water to fall close to the "trunk" to maximise root take-up.
It's a good catch though as I'm sure I'd fall to the leap from knowing that "trees grow by taking in CO2 and that is where they get their mass of carbon from" to the false assumption that "tree mass comes primarily from the air" without really thinking about it.
Thanks for your analysis.