Scientists have revealed why plants do not suffer sunburn like humans do.

Experts at the Glasgow University have discovered that UV-B wavelengths from the daylight spectrum as plants can protect themselves from the sun’s harmful rays by making their own chemical sunscreen in their leaves.

Last year, the group of scientists discovered that a protein called UVR8 detects the presence of harmful rays and initiates the process of protection.

A paper published by the Glasgow team was described as "groundbreaking" by Professor Gareth Jenkins, an expert in plant cell and molecular biology at the university and co-author of the report.

He said: "The search for this UV-B photoreceptor was something of a holy grail for plant photobiologists and we were very pleased last year when we discovered that UVR8 was the UV-B photoreceptor. Now, with our collaborators we have found that UVR8 detects UV-B by an entirely novel mechanism."

The research, which was done using the Arabidopsis plant, was published in the Science journal on Friday and was carried out in cooperation with the Scripps Research Institute in California.