Re: Plants The sixth sense

From: Paul Tyerman ptyerman at ozemail.com.au> on 2002.02.01 at 03:56:28(8114) Howdy All, It's interesting seeing someone else writing about this as it has been something that intrigued me for a long time. My particular thing that stood out is that certain vines have tiny yellow nodules on their stems, that mimic the eggs of their main predator. They are the right size, shape and colour. The predator comes along, sees these eggs and thinks that its brethren has already been there and therefore they do not lay their own eggs there. My thoughts on that were..... I know that the fittest survive and therefore go on to reproduce, but the natural chances of a particular vine producing nodules that mimic the eggs of their only predator is phenomenally small. There has to be some way that they register the presence of these eggs and more importantly their COLOUR. Nodules occuring naturally on a wine is "relatively" possible I suppose, but then colouring the same colour and shade as the eggs? How is this explained? I cannot see any other explanation than that they have some method of sensing their surroundings in a far more thorough method than we realise, including colours. Certainly is something to think about. Cheers. Paul Tyerman +More Canberra, Australia. USDA equivalent - Zone 8/9 mailto:ptyerman@ozemail.com.au Growing.... Galanthus, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Cyclamen, Crocus, Cyrtanthus, Liliums, Hellebores, Aroids, Irises plus just about anything else that doesn't move!!!!!

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