RE: Plant Communication, VOC's, CMN's and The Fungus Internet (for dummies)
And to think, this is only a tiny fraction of what we know about plant communication. While plants don't have brains, they do have neuron-like cells in the tips of their roots (Baluška, 2010). These similarities are being studied along with the electrophysical activities in plants to better understand how they make decisions in a variety of environments. It is pretty well accepted that plants use all the same five senses that we do--plus about another 15--to understand their environment and make decisions based on some sort of logic, but we still have a way to go in understanding the root of their complex behaviors (Mancuso & Viola, 2015)!
Feel free to ask any questions if you want to know more about Plant Neurobiology and Plant Intelligence.
References:
Baluška, František. “Recent Surprising Similarities between Plant Cells and Neurons.” Plant Signaling & Behavior 5.2 (2010): 87–89. Print.
Mancuso, Stefano & Viola, Alessandra, Brilliant Green. Italy: Island Press. 2015.
Yes, that is amazing, it's well documented how, for example, the Dodder Vine Plant can choose from which plant it will feed, almost always going for tomato plants (a fan of italian cuisine i guess).
The interesting part to me is that given two tomato plants to choose from, how do they choose between them? Both of them may be equally nutritious and with good sun exposure, and still they deliberately choose one over the other. The more research I do, the more fascinated I become by the logic plants employ. It is so different from our own, and I feel that unlocking it will help us become better humans and live in harmony with nature!