With trees and porous materials, this is known as "wicking". With humans and biology, it's the clotting factor that prevents bleeding out. There are downsides to this as well, blood clots in veins and arteries can cause heart attacks, strokes.

I read about this recently and found it fascinating - specifically related to tree height, but alludes to other implications.

https://livescience.com/14667-tall-trees-grow.html

It can't grow indefinitely, because the reaction with the carbon consumes the reactant in the material itself. I suspect the surface coating is a bit like the layer of aluminium oxide that forms on the surface of aluminium in that it seals off the mass under it from reacting with the air, and when scratched, the material underneath reacts with the carbon in the air to form a new coating.

proto-molecule ? :)