species: Albizia lebbeck in Cairns and Surrounds (Gaia Guide)

Cairns and Surrounds > Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fabales > Fabaceae > Albizia > Albizia lebbeck (gallery)

Albizia lebbeck

©David: Albizia lebbeck

Kingdom Plantae

Division Tracheophyta

Class Magnoliopsida

Order Fabales

Family Fabaceae

Genus Albizia

Species Albizia lebbeck

Colours

Distinguishing features still need to be specified.

When you touch a leaf, the tree tastes you. Not only are leaves breathing, they smell the air around them, and if you hurt a tree, an electric pulse shudders through it, travelling down the tree under your feet and sometimes into the next tree. Trees taste the air with their leaves. Like noses, the pores (stomata) in the leaves have molecules that bind with specific gases or chemicals and trigger different responses:
- Ripening fruits emit ethylene and the plant responds by ripening its own fruit.
- High carbon dioxide causes the plant to close its pores
- Parasitic plants taste other plants to select host
- Herbivorous insects cause them to increase toxin (terpenes) production