Senses of Plants In New Scientist

There are a couple of interesting small articles on the senses of plants and what we know..
Here’s the link. Many interesting things have been discovered since I took plant physiology, lo , these many years ago.. Here’s a link to some pages from Chamovitz’s book, “What a Plant Knows”.

HAVE you ever wondered what the grass under your feet feels, what an apple tree smells, or a marigold sees? Plants stimulate our senses constantly, but most of us never consider them as sensory beings too. In fact senses are extremely important to plants. Whatever life throws at them, they remain rooted to the spot – they cannot migrate in search of food, escape a swarm of locusts or find shelter from a storm. To grow and survive in unpredictable conditions, plants need to sense their environment and react accordingly. Some people may not be comfortable describing what plants do as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. They certainly lack noses, eyes, ears, mouths and skin, but in what follows, I hope to convince you that the sensory world of plants is not so very different from our own. Daniel Chamovitz

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