false or unprovable claims, but these myths are kept alive in the popular literature. Rapid reactions, such as the touch-induced collapse of the leaves of the sensitive plant Mimosa pudica, had already fascinated Charles Darwin and his son Francis, who published their 1881 book, The Power of Movements in Plants (New York: D. Appleton and Company), on this and related topics. Since the British father-and-son team concluded that the tip of the root can be compared with the brain of a lower animal, these famous biol- ogists became the doyens of the controversial 21st- century concept of “plant intelligence.” In his book The Restless Plant—the popular title will hopefully attract many readers outside the plant science community—Dov Koller (1925- 2007) summarized our current knowledge of plant movements from an evolutionary perspective. In a general introduction, the author describes the most conspicuous movements of the organs of ter- restrial plants (embryophytes), which are station- ary living beings: bending toward light, tracking the sun, opening a flower, or pulling a rhizome through the soil. These and many other changes in the spatial orientation or the conformation of organs or their parts are described in detail in the subsequent chapters. However, the focus of Koller’s account is the mechanisms of signal per- ception, transduction, and the responses via the actions of multicellular motor organs. Most of the pertinent principles and models currently dis- cussed in the literature are illustrated in the 30 high-quality figures so that nonspecialists can eas- ily understand the text, which is supplemented by a glossary. In a concluding section, the editor, Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh, states that “[m]ovement is a macroscopic behavior, drawing our attention to a plant’s ability to sense and respond to its environ- ment” (p. 178). Similar statements on the “behav- ior of the sensitive plants” can be found in the popular book cited above. However, in Koller’s work, readers will find a condensed collection of facts, data, and scientific theories on plant move- ments, whereas in many popular bestsellers on “the life of plants,” unfounded speculations and irrational claims are perpetuated. Koller’s text is an enjoyable read for anyone interested in the “behavior” of plants with reference to their evolu- tionary history. It will hopefully contribute to the distribution of rational and critical scientific think- ing with respect to the life of the green, sessile photosynthetic organisms on Earth. Ulrich Kutschera, Institute of Biology, Univer- sity of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Plant Defense: Warding Off Attack by Patho- gens, Herbivores, and Parasitic Plants. By Dale R. Walters. Hoboken (New Jersey): Wiley- Blackwell. $89.95 (paper). xi  236 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-1-4051-7589-0. 2011. The ability to defend itself against attackers is one of the key factors determining a plant’s fitness and has therefore been a major focus of research in basic and applied plant sciences as well as in ecol- ogy and evolutionary biology. The study of natural plant defenses is comparatively young but is, thanks to an increasing availability of modern chemical analytical, molecular, and genetic tools, one of the fastest growing fields in biological sci- ences. Nevertheless, until recently, the field lacked a unifying conceptual framework in form of a con- cise yet comprehensive textbook. The new volume by Dale R. Walters represents one of the first successful attempts to provide a unifying conceptual framework for plant defenses against different groups of plant consumers. With its 236 pages, the book is surprisingly short and it surely cannot cover the entirety of the tremendous body of available literature. However, the author does a great job of picking representative exam- ples from each of the possible categories of plant interactions. Each of the first three chapters follow the categorization into pathogens, parasites, and herbivores, and covers major characteristics of plant interactions with those groups of organisms (Chapter 1), the major mechanisms of defenses (Chapter 2), and wound signaling (Chapter 3). This categorization allows for an easy identifica- tion of commonalities and differences between mechanisms of interactions of plants with different organisms, and it prepares for an integrative ex- amination of plant interactions with multiple at- tackers and plant-mediated beneficial interactions with other organisms in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 rep- resents a very valuable and probably one of the most comprehensive lists of functional hypotheses and theories on plant defenses. It allows readers to place the rather mechanistic illustrations of plant defenses in the first four chapters into an evolu- tionary framework. The volume concludes with a short chapter on applied aspects of plant defenses. The limited size of the book does not leave space for discussions of controversial aspects in the study of plant defenses, but it provides a sufficient overview from which readers can explore further. This exploration is facilitated by valuable sugges- tions for readings at the end of each chapter and by informative grayscale figures that have been thoughtfully adjusted for clarity from the original publications. In some cases, the use of color fig- ures could have provided additional lucidity. 356 Volume 86 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY