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"Enough absorbing science to concede that plants continue to inspire and amaze us." ―The Wall Street Journal
How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap shut? Can it feel an insect's tiny, spindly legs? And how do cherry blossoms know when to bloom? Can they remember the weather?
For centuries we have marveled at plant diversity and form―from Charles Darwin's early fascination with stems to Seymour Krelborn's distorted doting in Little Shop of Horrors. But now, in What a Plant Knows, the renowned biologist Daniel Chamovitz presents an intriguing and scrupulous look at how plants themselves experience the world―from the colors they see to the schedules they keep. Highlighting the latest research in genetics and more, he takes us into the inner lives of plants and draws parallels with the human senses to reveal that we have much more in common with sunflowers and oak trees than we may realize. Chamovitz shows how plants know up from down, how they know when a neighbor has been infested by a group of hungry beetles, and whether they appreciate the Led Zeppelin you've been playing for them or if they're more partial to the melodic riffs of Bach. Covering touch, sound, smell, sight, and even memory, Chamovitz encourages us to consider whether plants might even be aware.
A rare inside look at what life is really like for the grass we walk on, the flowers we sniff, and the trees we climb, What a Plant Knows offers us a greater understanding of botany and science and our place in nature.
- Sales Rank: #16078 in Books
- Published on: 2013-04-30
- Released on: 2013-04-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.27" h x .56" w x 5.43" l, .35 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 192 pages
Review
“Of the dozens of books I read in 2012, several stand out. But there's one I keep coming back to, thumbing through it, letting people know about it. It's Daniel Chamovitz's What A Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses . . . It's incredibly interesting material, presented in an entertaining and fun way -- in about only 140 pages. What A Plant Knows is a nice fit on my shelf of gardening books -- and that's where it will stay. Although I've recommended the book to several people, I've ungraciously not let them borrow my copy. I fear I won't get it back.” ―Chicago Tribune
“The reader...will find enough absorbing science to concede that plants continue to inspire and amaze us. It's time, as Joni Mitchell sang at Woodstock, 'to get ourselves back to the garden' and take a closer look at plants.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“This elegantly written account of plant biology will change the way you see your garden...Chamovitz lets us see plants in a new light, one which reveals their true wonder.” ―The Guardian
“Thick with eccentric plant experiments and astonishing plant science.” ―Sunday Times (UK)
“Plants may be brainless, eyeless and devoid of senses as we know them, but they have a rudimentary 'awareness', says biologist Daniel Chamovitz. In this beautiful reframing of the botanical, he reveals the extent and kind of that awareness through a bumper crop of research.” ―Nature
“For everyone who has wondered at Mimosa, the suddenly snapping Venus flytrap or the way a sunflower's head unerringly turns to follow the sun, Daniel Chamovitz has written the perfect book.” ―American Scientist
“[A] fascinating inside look at what a plant's life is like, and a new lens on our own place in nature.” ―Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
“Verdict: Plant-astic.” ―Herald Sun (Australia)
“This well-researched book makes the compelling argument that plants "know" a lot more than most people give them credit for . . . Chamovitz eloquently elucidates that scientific evidence that proves it in easy-to-understand terms.” ―The American Gardener
“Chamovitz's book is pop science at its best, full of vivid examples of barely imaginable ways of living” ―BBC Wildlife
“In a lively and delightful discourse that aligns botany with human biology, [Chamovitz] articulates his findings, about plants and the senses in accessible, often whimsical observations that make complex science not only comprehensible but fun to ponder.” ―Booklist
“[A] handy guide to our own senses as well as those of plants.” ―Audubon
“An intriguing and scientific--but easy to read--look at how plants experience life.” ―Gardens Illustrated
“[Chamovitz] gently hints that we should have a greater appreciation of plants' complexity and perceptiveness . . . If plants can see, smell, feel, know where they are, and remember, then perhaps they do possess some kind of intelligence. Maybe that is worth reflecting on the next time you casually stroll past a plant.” ―Chelsie Eller, Science
“Like us, a plant that aspires to win the rat race must exploit its environment. Even a daffodil can detect when you're standing in its light, and a rhododendron knows when you're savaging its neighbor with the pruning shears. With deftness and clarity, Daniel Chamovitz introduces plants' equivalent of our senses, plus floral forms of memory and orientation. When you realize how much plants know, you may think twice before you bite them.” ―Hannah Holmes, author of Quirk and Suburban Safari
“Just as his groundbreaking research uncovered connections between the plant- and animal kingdoms, Daniel Chamovitz's insights in What a Plant Knows transcend the world of plants. This entertaining and educational book is filled with wondrous examples that underscore how the legacy of shared genomes enables plants and animals to respond to their environments. You'll see plants in a new light after reading What a Plant Knows.” ―Gloria M. Coruzzi, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University
“If you've ever marveled at how and why plants make the choices they do, What a Plant Knows holds your answer. Chamovitz is a master at translating the science of botany into the language of the layman.” ―Michael Malice, author, subject of Ego & Hubris, and succulent enthusiast
“Chamovitz walks the Homo sapiens reader right into the shoes--or I should say roots--of the plant world. After reading this book you will never again walk innocently past a plant or reach insensitively for a leaf. You will marvel and be haunted by a plant's sensory attributes and the shared genes between the plant and animals kingdoms.” ―Elisabeth Tova Bailey, author of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
“What a Plant Knows is lively, eloquent, scientifically accurate, and easy to read. I commend this engaging text to all who wonder about life on earth and seek a compelling introduction to the lives of plants as revealed through centuries of careful scientific experimentation.” ―Professor Stephen D. Hopper, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
“A fascinating book that explores accessibly the evidence that plants share more properties with animals than most people appreciate. It may come as a relief to vegetarians to learn that plants do not feel pain or suffer, in the human sense, when harvested. Nevertheless, after reading What a Plant Knows, we wanted to apologize to our daffodils for the times when our shadows have shielded them from the Sun.” ―John and Mary Gribbin, authors of The Flower Hunters
“By comparing human senses to the abilities of plants to adapt to their surroundings, the author provides a fascinating and logical explanation of how plants survive despite the inability to move from one site to another. Backed by new research on plant biology, this is an intriguing look at a plant's consciousness.” ―Kirkus
About the Author
Daniel Chamovitz, Ph.D., is the director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University. He has served as a visiting scientist at Yale University and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and has lectured at universities around the world. His research has appeared in leading scientific journals. Chamovitz lives with his wife and three children in Hod HaSharon, Israel.
Most helpful customer reviews
82 of 91 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting topic, informative, scientific, but sometimes hard to understand
By J. M. Lawniczak
Nonscientists with an interest in plants, such as gardening enthusiasts, should read this book. It appears to be very scientifically based, indeed the noted popular science magazine, Scientific American, is the publisher. The theme is how plants sense and respond to their environment. The book thus explores how plants "feel" light and respond to it. Also discussed is plants' reaction to touch, as well as other stimuli. The book can be understood by the nonscientist, though there are parts that became a little too technical for me. In addition, the organization is a bit off and sometimes chapters seem to end in what I thought should have been the middle of a discussion, leaving me waiting, in vain, for more.
This book works very well in the Kindle version. There are footnotes, but tapping takes the reader back and forth. A real plus on a tablet connected to the Internet is that several of the footnotes have direct links to You Tube videos that actually show a short video picture of the described event. What book can do that? For example, there is a picture of the American dodder weed plant growing into a tomato plant to feed on it. The video of the Venus fly trap closing in on a fly and then on a frog is also very worthwhile. On the other hand, some of the links have hyphens in them, probably as they were in the book form, and this means that the links don't work and you have to go to a website and type in the link directly.
All in all a very interesting book, with some minor flaws that led me to give it four instead of five stars.
44 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
The Beautifully Sophisticated Sensory Life of Plants
By Smith's Rock
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.
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
You'll find yourself looking at your plants differently
By David Lee Heyman
As I was reading this book I couldn't help thinking back to my days in high school reading Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. Both books are written with real science explained in a way that anyone can relate to and understand. In What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, Daniel. Chamovitz goes over the basic senses we relate to as humans (sight, touch, taste, smell, etc) and shows us how plants use similar functions in different ways. He explains why plants grow towards the light. We learn how plants understand they have been turned upside down and ensure that their roots continue to grow downward while their stalk grows upward. Daniel Chamovitz explains these phenomenon using examples and language that anyone from a high school student to a grandparent can easily understand. This book will become a classic for high school biology classes. It could be the handbook for many biology teachers that want to teach their students through reenactments of early botanical experiments. I highly recommend this book and anxiously await future books from the author.
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