How does plants live on just water and light?

Question

I have a dozen bamboo shoots in my office cubicle. I keep them in a glass vase and water them everyday. The vase has no soil, and no direct sunlight (just incandescent light). The bamboo shoots keep growing and growing and growing, and I'm dazzled as to how it does it. I mean, the leaves and stems and roots are all solid matter, not just water. Where does it get materials from? I'm just providing it water.

Answer 1

Bamboo shoots are making their own food with the help of light and carbon dioxide in presence of chlorophyll and water. You are giving just water to the plant.  All other factors are there in the environment.  In addition to these things plants also need some salts like ammonium salt, phosphates, nitrates and some elements like copper, zinc, molybdenum, cobalt etc in micro quantities.  These are made available to the plant through the water which you are giving to the plant. The natural water does contain some of these salts on which the plant grows very well.

Answer 2

I think it's called photosyenthesis or something like that...

Answer 3

the simplified answer is that the "solid" in the plants comes from carbon dioxide that the plant can pull out of the air using the energy from the lighting, combined with the water.

Carbohydrates are made of  carbon, hydrogen and oxgen.   All of which are found in the air and water.  pretty cool!