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Reviews
What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses: Updated and Expanded Edition by Daniel Chamovitz
bookwyrmknits's review against another edition
informative
4.0
This is a fascinating look at what senses a plant has, and how they are similar to (or different from) ours. Chamovitz takes us through the different senses and gives us a look at what a plant can see, smell, and feel, showing the scientific process while keeping the language simple enough for the average person to understand. (Though the references in the back provide plenty of additional material if you want a deeper dive.)
versionsofv's review against another edition
4.0
just what i love. an in depth explanation of science experiments correlating to our relationship with plant life, then ending it off in the epilogue so beautifully making you feel so much more aware of your surroundings and increasing your ability to feel present <3
andybeagle333's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.0
150 page nonfiction books take me 4x as long to read opposed to 500+ page sci-fi / fantasy books. With that being said!! This was interesting and I learned cool stuff but it took me a month and a half to read because I just could not be bothered to pick it up. My brain currently doesn't work at the speed needed to read this for fun
joeaar's review against another edition
3.0
Raamat uurib peatükkide kaupa, millised meeled võiksid taimel olla ning nagu selgub, on paljud neist mingil tasandil ka olemas (ainult kuulmisega on kehvemini).
baldingape's review against another edition
4.0
I always knew that plants were technically living things, but I’ve never paid them as much attention as the animals that surround them. Their seemingly ‘stationary’ nature lends to seem like the worlds wallpaper that just surrounds you, this books is a reminder that they’re not just wallpaper.
I hope that I will notice more subtleties of movement from plants, and be more aware that even just stroking a plant can actually make changes happen in the plant.
I hope that I will notice more subtleties of movement from plants, and be more aware that even just stroking a plant can actually make changes happen in the plant.
scribepub's review against another edition
The original 2012 version of this mind-bending romp through the vegetable kingdom was a huge hit, and this extensively updated second edition delivers even more of a good thing. Humorous, engaging and endlessly surprising, Chamovtiz's tale makes plants seem so intriguing and so intensely alive (as opposed to just sitting-there alive) that it almost makes you want to stop eating salad.
Popular Science
He analyses the intriguing parallels between plant and human senses in chapters devoted to what a plant sees, smells, feels, hears and remembers. It gives a whole new meaning to forget-me-nots.
Herald Sun
… an entertaining trot through current research into plant sensitivity.
Sydney Morning Herald
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 apologise 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
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 TimesUK
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 realise 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
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
Popular Science
He analyses the intriguing parallels between plant and human senses in chapters devoted to what a plant sees, smells, feels, hears and remembers. It gives a whole new meaning to forget-me-nots.
Herald Sun
… an entertaining trot through current research into plant sensitivity.
Sydney Morning Herald
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 apologise 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
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 TimesUK
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 realise 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
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