Question: can trees get cancer

Claire Vinten answered on 19 Mar 2014:

Interesting question….

I know very very little about plants, but it seems plants can get tumours. These are normally from infections with viruses and bacteria.

The big difference is that when plants get tumours, they do not cause much of a problem. This is because the insides of a plant are not arranged into organs – like the brain/lungs/heart of an animal. This means that if one area is damaged, there are still other parts of the plant that can do the same job (whereas if the brain of an animal is damaged, there is nothing else in the body that can do the brains job).

Also, tumours in plants do not spread. In animals, cancer in the brain might spread to the lungs and all around the body. In plants, a tumour only affects the area it grows it – it cannot move or spread. This is probably because cancer in animals is spread around the body by the blood circulating – but plants don’t have blood!

This was a challenging question, maybe the others can help us out too!