Whether or not we can say that a plant sensing and processing light is seeing, or if reacting to sound waves is hearing, or processing the information at a cellular level is thinking is debatable. However, if we accept that plant senses are valid senses, then plants can sense much of the same electro-chemical signals we do… and even some we can’t!
Plants Have Senses fact
The Secret Life of Plant Perception: Plants Can See, Hear, Smell, Feel, React, and Think
Plant senses don’t work the same as human senses, but generally speaking, plants can see, hear, smell, feel, react, and even think. Below we discuss plant senses and plant perception.
Understanding Plant Senses, Plant Intelligence, and Plant Perception
Plants have a wide range of senses and can react to phenomena like chemicals, gravity, pressure, light, moisture, infections, temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, parasite infestation, disease, physical disruption, sound, and touch.[1]
Plants use their cells the way we use our eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. They pick up electrochemical signals from the environment (feeling and sensing) and then process that information (thinking), releasing hormones and electrochemical signals, which causes the plant to react.
In other words, plants can sense, feel, think, and react based on sensory input. That process doesn’t work exactly the same as it does with humans, but it is analogous in many ways.
FACT: All organisms have senses, not just plants. Mushrooms and bacteria are also living organisms with sensory perception.
Can plants think?Examples of Plant Senses
Some plants can use one cell to focus light into another cell, and then process that information and use it to react to the environment (for example to grow toward the sunlight).[2] Is that “seeing”? Speaking loosely, we can argue yes, even though photoreceptors don’t work the same way in humans and plants.
We have the same argument for smells, sounds, and touch.
- For example, some plants can sense insects on their leaves and retract their leaves as a defense mechanism.
- Likewise, some small flowering plants can “hear” themselves being chewed by sensing vibrations, triggering a chemical defense as a response.[3]
- Likewise, fruiting plants can “smell” the chemical pheromone ethylene (a small hydrocarbon gas) produced by rotting fruit and react by ripening its fruits faster, so all fruits ripen at the same time.[4]
- Plants can even communicate with other organisms, like the mushroom. For example, trees communicate with each other across distances by passing messages through their roots and along underground webs of fungal growth. So, not only is a plant reacting to its environment via its senses, some are capable of interspecies communication.
Why Do Plants Have Senses?
This behavior and technology of plants serve the same general function of those of any organism, to aid in survival.
Thus, it is all likely plant sense can be explained in the same way any organism’s senses can be explained, as being a product of evolution.
Those plants which can react to the sun and grow toward the light survive and thrive; those which can communicate with trees via a mushroom web and sense far-away danger survive, etc.
The better an organism can react, the better it can survive. The better an organism can cooperate, the better it can survive. As we know from toxic plants and people, sometimes the better a thing can defend itself or go on the offense, the better it can survive too.
Are plants conscious?FACT: Plants can also respond to pain. When grass is cut, it sends out a distress hormone to tell other grass to watch out. Yes, the smell of fresh cut grass is the smell of fear and terror. Why does it smell so good you ask? I think you know the answer. It’s the same reason you like a salad; you are a bad person.
Do Plants Respond to Pain? BBC How Plants Communicate & Think – Amazing Nature Documentary?Article Citations
Conclusion
Author: Thomas DeMichele
Thomas DeMichele is the content creator behind ObamaCareFacts.com, FactMyth.com, CryptocurrencyFacts.com, and other DogMediaSolutions.com and Massive Dog properties. He also contributes to MakerDAO and other cryptocurrency-based projects. Tom's focus in all...
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gordon victor will Did not vote.
how do they know the wind spreads seeds insects pollinate
Tyrone Did not vote.
I tell him I plant all the time getting the kitchen and make me a sammich and sure enough the plant does it so yeah it’s true yo
Luis D Rey Did not vote.
The more I talk to my little plant the better she looks, I give her reasonable amount of water, but no food.
Am I doing enough for her?
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Plants need food, but food for plants is water, air, sunlight, and soil. So it may be incorrect to say you aren’t feeding your plant.
LILY Supports this as a Fact.
i think plants have senses because i think and KNOW THEY HAVE SENSES
Wieger Doesn't beleive this myth.
Complete nonsense, please ask any serious biologist.
Thomas DeMicheleThe Author Did not vote.
Clearly we aren’t saying plants have (for example) the same exact auditory system we have, we are saying some plants can “hear” in that they can sense vibrations in air molecules and react.
That is the way in which plants can sense things. They can sense and react, not exactly the same way humans do, but it is indeed true.
I assume if we are going to disagree here it will be a semantical argument.
Jason Doesn't beleive this myth.
Myth, but with some qualifications.
Not sure “thinking” is a accurate term of use. That term has much content when applied to humans and higher animals. There is no evidence that plants process information and reason about their actions. But it is interesting that plants have all these inclinations and reactions with their environment. They have no brain or nervous system. But then again, maybe mind is something more embedded in nature than we think. Lower-level consciousness reflects itself differently but is still conscious at some basic level nonetheless. Panpsychism perhaps??? I don’t know.
Jordan Flammia Did not vote.
wonderful response Jason
Choong Yoke Leng Did not vote.
Just because plants don’t hear, see and feel the way you do, doesn’t mesn they don’t hear, see or feel. Just because the wavelength in which they hear, feel and communicate with each other is beyond yours does not mean they don’t feel or communicate. Just because you cannot sense them does not mean they do not have senses.