Plant Slime: How Plants Use Sticky Sugars

Abstract

Slime is fun to play with—it is gooey, squishy, slippery, stretchy, and sticks to everything. But did you know that almost all plants make some kind of slime? Similar to how you can make slime at home using glue, plant slime is made of sticky sugars that can act like glue. This slime helps plants in many ways: it protects them from drying out, it helps them take up nutrients from the soil, and it shields plants from toxic materials that could damage them. But plant slime can also help plants climb up walls, stick to other plants, and interact with other organisms in the environment. In this article, we explain how plants use sticky slime to survive in various environments, and even how we can use this slime to make better materials and clean up our environment.