The kinetics of rehydration of detached sunflower leaves from different initial water deficit.

The tempo of rehydration of sunflower (Helianthus animus L.) leaves was measured after dehydration in a pressure bomb down to water potentials of −0.5 to −1.6 MPa. When rehydrated from small water deficits (−0.5 to −0.8 MPa) the plot of log rehydration rate versus time is concave. When rehydration starts from large deficits (−1.2 to −1.6 MPa) the semilog plot has a characteristic shoulder, i.e. a rehydration phase of long half‐time is followed by a phase of short half‐time. The experimental curves were fitted with parallel and series models of rehydration. In the parallel model two compartments are connected by resistances in parallel with the water source and rehydrate independently. In the series model one compartment is connected with the water source via a resistance and the second compartment is connected in series with the first by another resistance so that water entering the second compartment must pass through the first. Amongst nineteen experiments, ten could be fitted very closely by both the parallel and series models and nine could not be fitted by either model.