When it rains over vegetation, plants have an opportunity to get a limited supply of freshwater. A portion of rain drains directly to the soil down a plant stem in a hydrologic flux called “stemflow.” For short plants with shallow roots, which provide ground cover for most vegetated ecosystems around the globe (including forest understories), stemflow has rarely been examined although it may be ecologically important. This study investigates how much rainwater is funnelled into stemflow for a perennial herb that can densely populate urban environments, Tradescantia ohiensis Raf., spiderwort), in Savannah, Georgia (USA). Given the stem density of spiderworts (19–31 stems m⁻²), experiments were conducted to assess whether and how much stemflow can be passively intercepted and diverted by leaves in contact with neighbouring plant stems. Spiderworts' stemflow represented a significant portion (20%–60%) of rain and neighbouring plants intercepted and diverted ~50% of another plants' stemflow. This is the first documentation of stemflow interception and redirection by neighbouring plants, to the authors' knowledge. Because physical contact between plants occurs in various vegetated ecosystems (like lianas in forests), future research on this topic may be merited.

中文翻译：

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侠盗飞车？邻近的Tradescantia ohiensis Raf进行的干流拦截和重定向。（spiderwort）植物

当雨水覆盖植被时，植物就有机会获得有限的淡水。一部分雨水以称为“茎流”的水文通量直接排到植物茎下的土壤中。对于具有浅根的短株，它们为全球大多数植被生态系统（包括林下植物）提供地面覆盖，尽管它在生态上可能很重要，但很少对其进行检查。这项研究调查了在美国佐治亚州萨凡纳的多年生草本植物，可以浓密地分布在城市环境中的多年生草本植物，这是一种可以浓密地分布在城市环境中的Tradescantia ohiensis Raf。，蜘蛛草。给定紫露草的茎密度（19–31茎m ^-2），进行了实验，以评估与相邻植物茎接触的叶片是否能够被动拦截和转移多少茎流。紫露草的茎流代表了很大一部分雨水（20％–60％），相邻植物拦截并转移了约50％另一株植物的茎流。据作者所知，这是相邻植物进行茎流截留和重定向的第一份文件。由于植物之间的物理接触发生在各种植被生态系统中（例如森林中的藤本植物），因此有必要对该主题进行进一步的研究。