Nearly everyone knows that a plant that wilts needs water. But now you know that cell walls made of cellulose (a polysaccharide) also provide much of the “skeleton” of the plant. With this knowledge, you might think that watering your plant with a mixture of sugar and water (say, soda pop) will provide not only the water it needs but the building blocks for making a stronger skeleton on cell walls. In other words,

“Watering” a wilted plant with a solution of water and sugar will help the plant recover better than water alone.

Questions

1. Remember what you learned earlier about transport of materials and water across cell membranes . The water contained in plant cell vacuoles is nearly pure. Where would water flow in the case where you added sugar water to the soil—into or out of the cell? Explain why.
2. What does it mean that a plant cell wall is “elastic”?
3. What happens to the pressure inside plant cells that lose water? What do we call this condition?
4. How does the condition of cells relate to whether a plant is wilted or “crisp”?
5. Even if the sugar in soda pop did increase the thickness of plant cell walls, would that affect whether the plant was wilted or crisp under these conditions?
6. Given your answers to questions 1–5, explain why the statement bolded above sounds right, but isn’t.