Botanists estimate 30 percent of all plants have hairs on their aerial surfaces. Some of these hairs - they're called trichomes by researchers - can be secretory, others glandular. That's to say they produce, store, and release substances.

Gardeners are familiar with the abundant trichomes on tomato plants, even though the hairs are difficult to see. Pickers' hands smell like tomatoes after a few brushes against these tiny hairs.

Jerry Davis

These hairs covering a tomato's stems and flower buds give up the scent we know as tomato when we brush against them.

There are many purposes for these hairs, including warding off insect attacks, hampering invasion of disease-causing pathogens, and protecting the plant from excessive temperature and light.

What if a plant produced some chemical in a glandular trichome that was worth something to people, which had some commercial value? These little chemical factories could produce a flavoring, a pharmaceutical, a fragrance, a food additive, or a natural pesticide.

Some of these products are already being used and others are being explored and considered. With genetic engineering, once discovered, a plant could be harnessed to produce even larger amounts a product. How easy would it be to collect a product that is produced on the outside, rather than the inside, a plant?

Collection could be as easy as getting a fungus to produce an antibiotic; a new form of penicillin.