Plants have an array of volatile compounds they can release to signal other plants. By unleashing these cues, plants learn more about their environment and sufficiently respond. However, there are still many factors about plant scents scientists are still trying to understand. Scientists have studied how many of the volatile compounds released by plants are from a floral source. A study concluded that floral cues are as important as other volatile compounds and are pertinent for plant-to-plant communication. Further research found that plants who receive the floral volatiles have higher fitness than other volatile cues because floral cues are the only compounds released by plants that indicate their kind of mating environment. Plants are able to respond to these mating cues and change adjustable floral phenotypes that can affect plant pollination and mating. Floral volatiles can ward off or attract pollinators/mates all at once. Depending on the number of floral signals released by a plant can control the level of attracting/repelling the plant wants. The composition of floral compounds and the rate of their release are the potential factors that control attraction/repellence. These two elements can be in response to ecological cues like high plant density and temperature. For instance, in sexually deceptive orchids, floral scents emitted after pollination reduce the flower's attractiveness to pollinators. This mechanism acts as a signal to pollinators to visit unpollinated flowers.
Environmental conditions can affect plant communication and signaling. Signal factors include temperature and plant density. Environmentally high temperatures increase the rate of releasing floral compounds, which can increase the amount of signal released and thus its ability to reach more plants. When plant density increases, plant communication increases as well, since plants would be near each other and have signals reach many neighboring plants. This can also increase the signal's reliability and lowering the chance the signal will degrade before it can reach other plants.