Abstract:Water transport in plants is very important to normal growth and
development of plants after they absorbed water from soil. When plants are under drought stress or suffer from freezing_thawing cycles, water vapor or air occurs in tracheary elements, i.e, cavitation and embolism occurs in tracheary elements of plants. Formation of cavitation and embolism breaks off water column in tracheary elements, results in the difficulty of water transport, which affects growth and development of plants. After this, the refilling of embolized tracheary elements can resuscitate water transport in some embolized tracheary elements, and maintain normal physiological functions of some organs. In recent years some refilling tissues and its physiological processes were studied in detail, and some refilling mechanisms were proposed. Some mechanisms of refilling were reviewed due to the physiological roles of refilling of embolized tracheary elements.