The Action Plant: Movement and Nervous Behaviour in Plants

by SIMONS (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1992

  $5.81

  The Action Plant is a remarkable account of the world of plant movement, presenting a wealth of new research for the first time. Paul Simons shows that movement is not restricted to a few famous weird species but that all plants are alive with excitability. Leaves search for solar energy like miniature satellite dishes tracking the sun, fungi spear passing creatures with harpoons and insects are bludgeoned into cross pollination., But the book is not simply a catalogue of these extraordinary natural phenomena. Simons reveals how all plants can behave like animals thanks to a nerve-like system which they evolved from one-celled creatures. The revelations that these seemingly simple creatures have sensors, signals and motors all rolled into one cell that nervousness is probably universal to all living things.