Can Plants Think? Unlocking the Wisdom of Plants

It can share a silent understanding with the person who tends it carefully, no matter how far apart they are; it remembers those who once broke its kind, and shows fear; to deceive those hostile to it, it will feign fainting, as if unable to escape disaster, at least it could trade for a more pleasant death... Plants have wisdom too, and they can think. Is this true?

Researchers in the new field of botany believe plants are highly sensitive and capable of solving problems. They have no brain, yet through ways we do not fully understand, they can behave like intelligent beings. Plants can remember things that happen to them and learn from them.

Monica Gagliano is a very talented and also very bold plant physiologist, or in her own words, a "plant neurobiologist." She transplanted many mimosa plants into pots and conducted this famous experiment.

Mimosa

As early as the 18th century, humans knew that as soon as a mimosa encounters any touch or threat, it begins closing its leaflets from the tip all the way toward the stem. Gagliano's experiment was to drop these potted mimosa plants from a fixed height to the ground, simulating the action of touch and giving them a mild physical shock. At first, they all closed their leaves, appearing strongly averse. By the second and third drops, fewer mimosas closed their leaves. After many drops, not a single one would close its leaves anymore.

Simulation experiment illustration

Traditional botanists who saw this experiment said, "They're just tired!" But Monica repeated the same experiment on the same batch of plants a week later, and again a month later, and their response was the same: to being dropped to the ground, they no longer responded by closing their leaves. But if they were stimulated in the traditional way, such as being grabbed by hand, they would immediately close their leaves.

By comparison, bees can only remember where to gather nectar for three days. But mimosa can clearly "remember" the difference between an apparent threat and a real threat, and maintain this discrimination.