Check out this beautiful flower. At first glance, it looks like a set of lips, but in actually, these are the flowers that are produced by Psychotria elata, a plant that grows in Central and South American tropical forests.

The pitcher plant, much like the Venus flytrap, is a carnivorous plant that survives by digesting insects. It's sweet nectar entices insects to feed off it, though this may come at a cost as they risk falling into a deadly pool of acid at the bottom of the pitcher plant's bucket-shaped leaf.

Unlike conventional plants, the Venus flytrap copes with poor soil by eating bugs! But the cost of insect hunting is high. Catching prey requires Dionaea muscipula to snap down quickly and then carry out the energy-intensive process of digestion. To balance the costs and benefits of eating meat, the plants have developed a counting system to identify real prey from false alarms, according to a new study.

 To understand how the flytrap distinguishes a potential food source from a false alarm like a raindrop, researchers observed the electrical and chemical response of the plant to touch stimulation. In order to mimic insect prey, the scientists stimulated the hairlike sensors located on the plant’s trap. Touching the sensors two times quick ...

The short clip above shows what happens to an injured plant when a nibbling insect attacks the leaves of a plant: the entire plant is alerted to begin anticipatory defense responses.

Working in the model plant Arabidopsis, researchers recently showed that a systemic signal begins with the release of glutamate, which is perceived by glutamate receptor–like ion channels upon injury to a leaf. The ion channels then set off a cascade of changes in calcium ion concentration that propagate through the phloem vasculature and through intercellular channels called plasmodesmata. This glutamate-based long-distance signaling is rapid; within minutes, an undamaged leaf can respond to the fate of a distant leaf.

If plants react to injury more similarly to ...