How do plants know there is wind - and why do some seeds have canopies for the wind to carry the seeds off?

Question

Fairly good answers so far - but you still have not managed to grasp the question or rathre avoided certain aspects of it:

If they do not know the wind is there, in the first place then how do they know to produce their seeds with canopies for the wind to take them? This has nothing to do with evolution.

Answer 1

Imagine if at sometime a plant in a windy environment produced a random mutation of a primitive canopy that allowed it to spread it's seeds much further than it's noncanopied seeded rivals. By it’s early success this variety would become more abundant and what once was a freak now is the norm.  The once crude canopy seed plants would have to compete with other or their kind and over time and further desirable mutations become the elegant design we see today. We will just never be aware of the many billions of messy trail and errors that produced it.

An organism does not have to be aware of or certainly understand a force of nature to have it affect their future success.

Answer 2

they don't know its just in the past the plants that survived where those who were able to reproduce sucessfully. The wind carries the seed to a an ovum (cant remember spelling). Those which had structures which enabled the wind to carry the seed had more chance of reproducing. It is adaptation ie, as the climate changed the plants did also. A main topic in evolution and survival of the fittest.

Answer 3

Plants do not "know" that there is wind. However, evolution has selected for plants whose seeds are dispersed by the wind. By sowing its seeds using the wind the plant is able to colonize distant lands thus ensuring its survival. Plants utilize different mechanisms to disperse their seeds. Some develop spines that stick to passing animals, others produce succulent fruits that are eaten with the seeds which are then dropped far away by the fruit eating animal when it drops its waste. Others are carried by water and various other means. Any adaptation that ensures that seeds are dispersed away from the parent plant enhances the chances of survival of that plant.

Answer 4

it's just a way of spreading seeds, as the seeds become hard and the seed pod starts to open they are loose and the wind just picks them up.

there are a lot of methods that plants use to spread the seeds.

wind and moving air also help the plants to grow better.

it's all too long to explain!