Book Review: What a Plant Knows

What a plant knows explores the abilities of plants from the perspective of human senses. Covering sight, smell, feel, and hearing the author, Daniel Chamovitz, cleverly and clearly weaves his way through the experiments that have been used to explore and discover how plants recognise and respond to various stimuli.

From the experiments of Darwin and son, up to modern cutting edge science, Daniel explains what a plant can and cannot do - as far as we know. There are also chapters on how a plant knows where it is followed by what a plant can remember - that chapter using the excellent example of the Venus Flytrap. The final chapter looks at intelligence of plants and how our ideas about this are evolving - and importantly pointing out that while plants may do things a bit differently to us; they are aware.

This is the first book by the author and I hope it won't be the last. This is a book written for newbies to the topic, but even for those that do know about the processes involved, it is worth reading to get the background on the science and the evolution of the understanding that we have gained over the past two hundred years.

This is a review of the Oneworld 2012 edition, there is new edition - however, I haven't been able to see what the differences are between the two. Whether you buy it or borrow it, read this book. The only problem with it is that it leaves me wanting more!

  

Own or Loan:          Loan

Read Again:            Yes

Recommend:          Yes

Overall out of Five: 4