Your houseplant is quietly and silently sitting in its pot, but it is carrying on conversations that you can’t sense. Scientists have discovered that plants never cease conversation, constantly on the alert for danger, trading goods, and even screaming for assistance. Plants employ chemical messages, humming frequencies, and mycelia networks underground to attain some of the most sophisticated interactions ever.
They will revolutionize all that we ever supposed we knew concerning intelligence. Learning that plants talk gives us a window into a hidden world of plant competition and conspiracy going on right under our noses. The plant’s secret tongue does exist, complex, and downright fascinating.
Smell as a Warning System: Chemical Conversations
When an infestation of insects attacks a plant, it doesn’t take it lying down. It emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs)—volatile chemical messages that nearby plants can smell out and react to.
Tomato plants. Researchers at Kyoto University found that when tomato plants were under attack by tobacco hornworm caterpillars, the nearby plants in their vicinity sensed the chemical warning and began to produce defence chemicals even before they were touched by the caterpillars. They somehow “eavesdropped” on the warning and prepared themselves beforehand to fend off the attack.
Incredible facts about plant communication by smell:
- Lima beans release chemicals that induce parasitic wasps, natural leaf-munching predators, into killing mode.
- Sagebrush warns surrounding plants, which are poisonous to leaves
- Damaged corn plants release some VOCs that differ depending on what is causing the damage
UC Davis’s Dr. Richard Karban made the finding that plants can distinguish between chemical communication among close relatives and among other “strangers” and respond more strongly to genetic kin. Plants aren’t shootin’ the breeze—they’re choosing with whom they’re shootin’ the breeze.
Read More: Why Do Some People Remember Smells More Vividly Than Faces?
The Wood Wide Web: Underground Networks
Underground, plants access huge networks of fungi known as mycorrhizae. Scientists have dubbed it the “wood wide web”—a subterranean system through which plants and trees trade nutrients, data, and even commodities.
British Columbia forest scientist Dr. Suzanne Simard discovered that trees utilize the networks of fungi to help each other. Mature and big “mother trees” support young seedlings by supplying them with carbon and nutrients through the network. When Simard severed fungal connections, seedling survival rates went down.
A single Douglas fir in only one of the Canadian stands had 47 other trees attached to it through the mycorrhizal fungal network, according to Simard. By shading the young trees so that they won’t receive the sun, the trees surrounding them cut off the nutrient supply, so they can feed them.
They also warn one another. When one tree is under attack from insects or drought, network trees get chemical warning signals and respond by changing their own biology accordingly. It’s sophisticated plant communication without aerial signals.
Read More: Why Do Some People Love Rain Smells?
Sound and Vibration: Do Plants Hear?
Plants respond to vibration from sound as if they “hear.” Researchers at Tel Aviv University discovered evening primroses sweeten nectar in minutes after being able to detect the vibration of bee wing movement. They conducted an experiment in which they taped the recordings of bees’ sounds, and flowers responded but refused other frequencies.
Roots also take advantage of vibration. Corn roots generate clicks, and if scientists could generate the same kind of clicks anywhere close to the neighboring seedlings, then the roots would grow in the direction of the sound. That is, plants utilize sounds in the soil in order to locate water and communicate with one another.
Plants may have evolved to listen, according to some scientists, because vibrations are reliable signals of weather, animal migrations, and competition for resources.
Do plants talk? Yes, but not at all in a way that we can imagine as language. Plants are always arguing over how they do it, through chemical signaling, fungal networks in the ground, and vibrations. They exchange warning messages, gossip with kin, and welcome friends and deter enemies with purpose.
This ancient, profound conversation between deep-rooted plants has been ongoing for millions of years and has only recently come into our vision. The next time you walk through a forest or garden, remember you are surrounded by gossip. The plant world is much more plugged in and chatty than you realize.
Read More: Could Trees Really Communicate Through Underground Networks?
