Given that plants have no pain, nerves, or brains, they don’t feel pain in the way we in the animal kingdom understand it. Pulling carrots or pruning hedges isn’t a form of plant abuse, and you can safely bite the water.
But it turns out that many plants can sense and communicate physical stimuli and injuries in more ways than previously thought. The trap can close after about half a second. Similarly, sensitive plants quickly close their leaves when touched, a change that could increase the potential for predators.
While these plants clearly demonstrate the ability to sense, recent research has shown that other plants can sense and respond to mechanical stimuli at the cellular level. When Arabidopsis thaliana (a mustard plant often used in scientific research) is eaten by caterpillars or aphids, these signals are sent from one leaf to another, strengthening its defense against herbivores.
Although this amazing response is due to physical damage, electrical stimulus signals are not equivalent to disease symptoms, and we should not inflict pain on plants. Plants have a unique ability to respond to sunlight, gravity, wind, and even the bite of small insects, but (thankfully) their success and failure are determined not by heartache, but by simple life and death.
