Before you read this material make sure you are familiar with the basics of osmosis. You should understand osmosis, diffusion and the terms turgor pressure, hypertonic, hypotonic and isotonic. After a period of time the cells will become turgid.
Turgor pressure is the pressure exerted against the cell wall by contents of the cell.
At first most water movement is into the cell. As the turgor pressure increases water will begin to diffuse out of the cell at a greater rate, eventually equilibrium will be reached and water will enter and leave the cell at the same rate. Chemical potential of a substance is the free energy per mole of that substance. Water potential is important when studying osmosis because it measures the ability of water to move, water always moves from areas of high potential to areas of low water potential. The symbol for water potential is the Greek letter Psi.