We know dogs can smell.....Can you believe plants can also smell?
Scientists say "sure" it does. This happens during fruit ripening. You would have heard that if you keep a ripe mango in the same bag with other unripe mangoes they will ripen faster. This happens because the ripe one releases a ripening pheromone into the air, and the green fruit smells it and then starts ripening itself. When one fruit starts to ripen, it releases a hormone called ethylene, which is sensed by neighboring fruits, until the entire tree and groves ripen more or less at the same time. Another plant that uses smell to find its food is Dodder (cuscuta ), the parasitic plant . Dodder can’t do photosynthesis, and so has to live off of other plants. The way it finds its host plant is by smelling. A dodder can detect minute amounts of chemicals released in the air by neighboring plants, and will actually pick the one that it finds tastiest! After a dodder attaches itself to a plant, it wraps itself around it and produces hau...