Wondering How a Plant Moves.

Most plants don't just sit there looking pretty (or ugly).  No, they move around a lot.  Yes, I know that most plants are attached to the ground with roots and yes, I am talking about those plants.  Plants always seem to bend so that their leaves get the most exposure to sunlight that is possible at all hours of the day.  They move toward the light.  Now (scratching my head), I ask myself, "Self, how the heck do they do that?"  They don't have muscles like animals, but they move.  Don't believe me?  Take a plant and set it in a window and after a period of time it will lean and try to expose the biggest proportion of their leaves to the light.  Now, after a few days or a week, turn the plant around by 180 degrees.  Yep, after awhile, it will be leaning toward the window again.

Plants don't have nerves like we do but they do communicate with other parts of the plant.  How do they do this?  They have a chemical language that lets cells communicate with each other.  Hormones and neurotransmitters are chemicals that tell a cell about the environment around it or communicate messages.  I am not going to go into detail here, but as we all know, different cells in living things communicate with each other.

OK, so how does a plant move toward the light?  The growing tips of plants produce the growth hormone auxin which is sent to the rest of the plant.  It is a hormone that tells the cells to grow and divide.  More of this hormone is sent to the shady side of the plant making the cells in that side of the plant grow and divide faster than the ones on the sunny side, thus making the plant lean toward the sun (or light).

It is amazing to me that a living thing that is not supposed to have a brain or is not supposed to think, can do such complicated stuff.  The world around us is such a marvelous place!!  I must give credit to the magazine Discover, where I got this information.  Now, keep on the sunny side life (a song I like) and have a great day, you hear?

So then, how does a plant use