Could one of you more knowledgable than I on the subject rate the following
idea somewhere between utter science fantasy and coming soon to a walmart near
you.

Designing, either by breeding or more exotic forms of genetic tampering, a
plant that basically performs reverse osmosis desalinization of sal****er. I
visualize a basically cylindrical plant that would lie horizontally like a
vine. One end would be in the sea or in other sal****er, the other would be
providing desalinated water. The plant would provide the mechanical action to
both suck in the sal****er at one end and to provide the necessary pressure for
the osmosis. Osmosis would take place from the outside of the cylinder inwards
so that the center of the vine would be used for desalinated water transport.

The vine would have leaves to provide photosynthesis (or some more efficient
solar energy conversion system).

Salt disposal would probably be a big problem. Only way I can imagine handling
it is to migrate concentrated brine to the extreme outer layers of the vine so
that salts could excreted to the outside.

Anyway, this idea came up during a discussion of low cost desalinization
techniques. I don't really know too much about the state of the art of plant
design, or whether such a discipline even exists yet.

Serious replies are appreciated.