Chemicals in Plants?

Marc Pacchioli, known as Crophugger on Twitter, has written an excellent post on secondary plant metabolites on HubPages: Natural Plant Chemicals: Vital Nutrients for a Healthy Diet, Natural Chemical Arsenal, or Both?

What are these chemicals that plants produce? What are they for? For the answers to these and many more questions about plant secondary metabolites, check out the teaser below and continue on to read Marc’s full post.

Green potato with solanine molecule. Images from Simply Recipes and Wikipedia.

A discussion about the secondary chemicals naturally present in fruits and vegetables, indeed in most sedentary or slow moving forms of life on earth including fungi and sea sponges, usually is immediate cause for raised eyebrows and furtive glances, especially in non-scientific circles.