What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses Paperback – Illustrated, April 30, 2013

This book is a good compendium of what science has discovered about how plants respond to light, chemicals in the air, vibrations, touch, sound, and spatial orientation. But at the end, it seems that the author is intent on closing the door against any notion that plants might be intelligent. This is remarkable in light of the fact that much of what he discusses in the earlier chapters was not suspected by science only a few decades ago but is now widely accepted in the scientific community. Indeed, he points out that the area of plants’ sensitivity to sound has been newly opened up by researchers who realized that we might have been looking at the wrong sounds —i.e., plants may not be sensitive to classical music, but they are sensitive to the sound of flowing water, which is important to their survival. Given that history, it’s hard to understand why the author seems so intent on closing the door against certain types of further discoveries, rather than simply saying that these are open questions that science has not yet found a way to explore. Perhaps those in the scientific community who are bold enough to write about what plants “know” still have to carefully guard their reputations against accusations that they are anthropomorphizing plants. If that’s the case, we should be very thankful to this author for having gone as far as he has in laying out what is known.

What a Plant Knows is a rare and beautiful piece of science journalism. Author Daniel Chamovitz's writing threads a needle with an aperture so fine that it is only rarely successfully accomplished: in elegantly simple language that is accompanied by a gentle sense of humor and deep integrity, he guides the reader to a new door of knowledge in a fashion that guarantees one will step through it. And once he/she steps through it, the reader's appreciation of what a plant can sense and remember (yes, remember, in a very specific sense) will be irrevocably altered.This is not a dry and dusty tome. Though the phrase "I read it in a single sitting" more commonly applies to fictional thrillers (e.g. The DaVinci Code), it's applicable occasionally in science writing, and it's applicable to What a Plant Knows. Chamovitz, is a natural born teacher. When the reader wants to know "How the heck does a plant know which way is up, and which way is down?", Chamovitz refuses to plop the final answer out in one paragraph, instead, teasing the reader along the actual historical pathway that elucidates what we now know. And in so doing, he brings the full beauty of any given aspect of plant biology into focus, but ALSO brings to light the beauty and power of science that is well done; science done by people with a careful but insatiable need to know; science done by people whose need to be accurate exceeds their desire to prove their own theory right.Chamovitz has the startling belief that the unvarnished truth is more fascinating than hyperbole, and hence What a Plant Knows is completely absent the hype and goofiness of The Secret Lives of Plants. You won't, after reading this book, find yourself crooning your favorite songs to your tomato plants (plants, Chamovitz convincingly demonstrates, really are deaf). But despite the fact that Chamovitz eschews sensationalism, what he says about the sensory life of plants, and what a plant can "know" and "remember" (the author very carefully defines what he means by those terms) is indeed both fascinating and sensational.The book is just plain fun. Besides getting to learn terrific words like statoliths (essential for a plant to know which way is up, which is down), Chamovitz ups the relevancy factor multiple notches by linking the knowledge he presents to the reader with real life applications. He, for example, lets us know just how it is that flower growers get boat loads of chrysanthemums to bloom just in time for Mother's Day. Growers of Northern California's inhalable cash crop use this knowledge in what they call their "light dep" (light deprivation) season.Plants, front and center, are the rock stars of this fascinating book. But also in starring roles are the folks that quietly, carefully, and with determination, track down the truth about the way our world works: scientists. They look good in this book. And so does science. Chamovitz's gentle, firm, funny, exploration of what tricks that plants have up their sheaves is full of integrity and passion. Treat yourself to it.

We as a species find it very easy to identify with other animals and we are adept at imagining anthropomorphic qualities in them but we seldom feel the same with plants. In this book `What a Plant knows', Daniel Chamovitz examines how plants see, feel, hear, smell and remember and shows us that the genetics underpinnings are the same as us, though they took a different evolutionary path in the last one billion years.Starting with Darwin's contribution to the study of plants (it is amazing how much a single man has contributed to the field of evolutionary biology), Daniel looks at the different `senses' from a plant's point of view, the role of the various genes and how they have evolved to create the huge diversity in the plant kingdom that we see today. The best thing about the book is the way Daniel defines the fundamentals of each `sense', how we humans use that sense and how it differs when it comes to the realm of plants.Maybe not as eloquent as Richard Dawkins or as technically deep as Nick Lane, Daniel Chamovitz brings a different style of science writing that I found fascinating. Explaining the concepts in a very clear and simple manner, while not dumbing it down, Dainiel has done a remarkable job. Though the book is on plants, I found its coverage of genomics (from the basics to the complex) one of the best that I have seen. (Never seen a better one line definition of `Epigenetics').We take plants for granted and see them basically as food for us. Though we acknowledge their greenery, beauty and other contributions to making earth a habitable place, we still never take them as seriously as we would consider animals or birds. However any one who reads this book will start looking at plants differently. From the carnivorous venus fly trap to the stately oak tree, we will start admiring the innovations that our cousins have come up with using the same genetic code that we share with them.Don't miss this book - it will enhance your senses!

I got this for my niece and it's beautiful

Excellent book. Got to learn a lot about the psyche of plants.

Did not like it so much.

I recommend this as a light read.Plant biology is an interest of mine, and I found it interesting to hear how plant senses work, especially in comparison to human physiology, but I was hoping for some more in-depth information as there was very little New for me to learn. Colour pictures, and more of them, would be nice to. This book is very easy to read, and would be suitable for 3rd graders as an intro to plant biology and bio chem, but also for the curious plant novis.

If you touch a tree and walk away, you will carry the memory of that tree and maybe some emotional connotations, the tree will only remember being touched. Does a Venus fly trap have a memory? Plants have to adapt, they cannot escape. We may share genes, but we use the sensory results differently. This book explores the sensory capabilities of plants but, for me, falls, unsatisfactorily, between an easy read and an academic study. Worth reading because it has some interesting thoughts and discoveries.

This book is an absolute revelation without requiring any interest in or knowledge of plants. By the end of the book you have a new found respect for plants and how they behave and cannot help but look at them in a different way. If there was any reminder needed as to how clever nature can be, this book contains the evidence.