What path does water take to reach the leaf from the root hair?
Once water has entered a root hair, it must move across the cortex and endodermis before it reaches the xylem. Water will take the path of least resistance through a root to reach the xylem. Cross section of a plant root Water can move across the root via three different pathways. One path is the apoplastic path where the water molecule stays between cells in the cell wall region, never crossing membranes or entering a cell. The other two routes, called cellular pathways, require the water molecule to actually move across a membrane. The first cellular pathway is the transmembrane path where water moves from cell to cell across membranes; it will leave one cell by traversing its membrane and will re-enter another cell by crossing its membrane. The second cellular path is the symplastic path which takes the water molecule from cell to cell using the intercellular connections called the plasmodesmata which are membrane connections between adjacent cells. Regardless of the pathway, once t
