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When they are hydraulically isolated, embolized xylem vessels can be refilled, while adjacent vessels remain under tension. This implies that the pressure of water in the refilling vessel must be equal to the bubble gas pressure, which sets physical constraints for recovery. A model of water exudation into the cylindrical vessel and of bubble dissolution based on the assumption of hydraulic isolation is developed. Refilling is made possible by the turgor of the living cells adjacent to the refilling vessel, and by a reflection coefficient below 1 for the exchange of solutes across the interface between the vessel and the adjacent cells. No active transport of solutes is assumed. Living cells are also capable of importing water from the water‐conducting vessels. The most limiting factors were found to be the osmotic potential of living cells and the ratio of the volume of the adjacent living cells to that of the embolized vessel. With values for these of 1·5 MPa and 1, respectively, refilling times were in the order of hours for a broad range of possible values of water conductivity coefficients and effective diffusion distances for dissolved air, when the xylem water tension was below 0·6 MPa and constant. Inclusion of the daily pattern for xylem tension improved the simulations. The simulated gas pressure within the refilling vessel was in accordance with recent experimental results. The study shows that the refilling process is physically possible under hydraulic isolation, while water in surrounding vessels is under negative pressure. However, the osmotic potentials in the refilling vessel tend to be large (in the order of 1 MPa). Only if the xylem water tension is, at most, twice atmospheric pressure, the reflection coefficient remains close to 1 (0·95) and the ratio of the volume of the adjacent living cells to that of the embolized vessel is about 2, does the osmotic potential stay below 0·4 MPa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]