--- title: Plants deeper: do trees talk? Fungi, warning smells and giant clones — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Plants deeper: do trees talk? Fungi, warning smells and giant clones», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Trees cannot walk, shout or run away, but they are not as silent as they look. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Plants deeper: do trees talk? Fungi, w… # Plants deeper: do trees talk? Fungi, warning smells and giant clones Lesson 252 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/0/) — Trees cannot walk, shout or run away, but they are not as silent as they look. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/1/) — Under the forest floor, thin threads of fungi wrap around their roots, and in the air they give off smells that change when they are hurt. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/2/) — The fungus threads trade with the tree: the fungus brings water and minerals from far through the soil, and the tree pays it with sugar. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/5/) — Other plants, and even some insects, can pick such signals up. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/6/) — Scientists are still finding out how much trees really share through fungi. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/7/) — Some exciting claims are proven, others are still argued about, and good science says which is which. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/8/) — Many fungi in the soil join tree roots with fine threads; this partnership is called mycorrhiza, and about nine in ten kinds of plant have such fungus partners; the mushrooms that pop up in a ring round a tree often grow from these fungus threads. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/9/) — The fungus brings the tree water and minerals, and the tree pays the fungus with sugar made in its leaves. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/10/) — Fungus threads can join many trees, and some sugar and signals may pass from tree to tree, but how much and how often is still debated by scientists. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/11/) — The idea of a «mother tree» feeding her young through fungi comes from some scientists' work; it is a helpful picture, but trees do not feel love the way people do, and the evidence is argued about. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/12/) — When acacias are eaten, their leaves become more bitter, and they may give off a gas that makes nearby acacias turn bitter too; giraffes often move on and browse trees upwind. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/13/) — In South Africa in the 1980s many kudu antelopes died on crowded farms, and one explanation was that the acacias there had turned too bitter. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/14/) — The smell of cut grass is a chemical signal given off by the hurt grass; some plants chewed by caterpillars give off smells that call wasps which lay their eggs in caterpillars. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/15/) — Plants make bitter or poisonous chemicals after being attacked; a chewed tomato plant makes its leaves harder to digest. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/16/) — In an experiment, a small mustard-like plant made more defence chemicals after hearing a recording of caterpillars chewing; plants have no ears but can respond to vibrations. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/17/) — Some old tree stumps stay alive for years because their roots are joined to nearby trees, which keep them fed with sugar. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/18/) — A grove of aspens can be one giant plant, all trunks joined by one root system with the same genes; Pando in Utah weighs about 6,000 tonnes, and the trunks of such a clone can all turn gold on the same autumn day. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/19/) — A honey fungus in Oregon spreads under about 10 square kilometres of forest and may be thousands of years old, making it one of the largest living things. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/252-plants-deeper-do-trees-talk-fungi-warning-smells-and-giant-clones/20/) — Old forests with big trees store huge amounts of carbon and are home to many fungi and creatures. - ← previous: [Plants deeper: leaves and sunlight, how a tree is made of air](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/251-plants-deeper-leaves-and-sunlight-how-a-tree-is-made-of-air/) - next →: [Plants deeper: the oldest, tallest and strangest trees](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/253-plants-deeper-the-oldest-tallest-and-strangest-trees/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)