# Plant vision

> On vision in plants.

On vision in plants.

## Phototropism

That plants respond to light (<phototropism>) has long been known. In the early <1900s>, it also became known that some plant tissues have structures capable of focusing light precisely. The following is an image formed in the epidermal cells of *Tradescantia fluminensis*:[^1]

![Tradescantia fluminensis cells.png](https://wiki.g15e.com/data/Tradescantia%20fluminensis%20cells.webp)

## The hypothesis of visually guided mimicry

In <2014>, it was discovered that one plant species (<Boquila trifoliolata>) can mimic the leaf shapes of other plants nearby.[^2] Plants that mimic background colors or patterns, or the leaves of a single species, were already known, but this was the first species known to mimic a variety of plant species.

Proposed explanations included a response to volatile chemicals from the host plant and <horizontal gene transfer> from the host. But a <2022> study found that the plant also mimicked the leaves of an artificial plastic plant, rejecting those earlier hypotheses.[^3] As an alternative, the study proposed that the plant uses [ocelli](https://wiki.g15e.com/en/pages/Ocellus.txt) to "see" and mimic the shapes of nearby leaves.

## Footnotes

[^1]: 1884, <Gottlieb Haberlandt>, Physiological Plant Anatomy
[^2]: [Leaf mimicry in a climbing plant protects against herbivory](https://wiki.g15e.com/pages/Leaf%20mimicry%20in%20a%20climbing%20plant%20protects%20against%20herbivory.txt)
[^3]: [Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant](https://wiki.g15e.com/pages/Boquila%20trifoliolata%20mimics%20leaves%20of%20an%20artificial%20plastic%20host%20plant.txt)