From: here@is.invalid   
      
   Plants can detect insect attacks by 'sniffing' each other's aromas   
      
   Fragrant aromas from plants can actually be a response to attacks by   
   insects, and can alert neighbours to an attack or summon the insects’   
   predators. Now, scientists are deciphering these secret codes to   
   develop better, greener chemicals to defend crops against herbivorous   
   insects.   
      
   Plants have nowhere to run from their enemies - flying, crawling and   
   jumping insects want to eat them alive. But plants are not   
   defenceless. They deploy chemical toxins to deter insects. These can   
   make the plant taste bitter, inhibit the herbivore’s digestive   
   enzymes, disrupt their metabolism or poison them.   
      
   But they have a more subtle defence too - perfumed chemical compounds,   
   known as volatiles, that they emit into the air to warn neighbours of   
   danger or convey when they’re hurt. An example is the smell of cut   
   grass, a mix of molecules called ‘green leaf volatiles’ which are   
   released when a plant is damaged.   
      
   ‘Plants are nature’s chemists. They take a few simple inorganic   
   molecules and produce thousands of different organic molecules by just   
   adding (energy from) sunlight,’ said Professor Matthias Erb, a plant   
   scientist at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He investigates the   
   volatiles that plants emit when attacked by insects for a project   
   called PERVOL.   
      
   ‘Some of these volatiles attract natural enemies of the herbivore, so,   
   friends of the plant,’ said Prof. Erb. For example, if a caterpillar   
   attacks a plant, these volatiles may attract parasitoid wasps or   
   trigger defence responses in neighbouring plants. He says plants don’t   
   help one another by signaling ‘I’m under attack’. Rather, they snoop   
   on one another’s chemical signals to warn themselves about imminent   
   threats.   
      
   https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/plants-can-detect-insect-att   
   cks-sniffing-each-others-aromas.html   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)