![]() ![]() In Mancuso’s new book, The Incredible Journey of Plants, we meet the world’s oldest plant – Old Tjikko – a red fir tree whose roots have writhed in the Swedish earth for about 9,560 years. There is no evidence that the human voice benefits plants, although talking to plants may soothe the humans doing it.Īnother reason we overlook plants’ intelligence is their vastly slower pace of life. “Plants are extremely good at detecting specific kinds of sounds, for example at 200hz or 300hz … because they are seeking the sound of running water.” If you put a source of 200hz sound close to the roots of a plant, he says, they will follow it. Plants respond to sound, too, “feeling” vibrations all over. Photograph: Lars Johansson/Getty Images/iStockphoto Old Tjikko in Sweden is almost 10,000 years old. When corn is nibbled by caterpillars, for example, the plant emits a chemical distress signal that lures parasitic wasps to exterminate the caterpillars.Ī slower pace of life. They use chemicals and scents to warn each other of danger, deter predators and attract pollinating insects. They are adept at detecting subtle electromagnetic fields generated by other life forms. We know that a single root apex is able to detect at least 20 different chemical and physical parameters, many of which we are blind to.” There could be a tonne of cobalt or nickel under our feet, and we would have no idea, whereas “plants can sense a few milligrams in a huge amount of soil”, he says.įar from being silent and passive, plants are social and communicative, above ground and beneath, through their roots and fungal networks. This is based on thousands of pieces of evidence. But Mancuso says plants are far more sensitive than animals. For me, it’s impossible to imagine any form of life that is not able to be intelligent, to solve problems.”Īnother misconception is that plants are the definition of a vegetative state – incommunicative and insensitive to what is around them. ![]() “My personal opinion is that there is no life that is not aware of itself. This has been taken in recent years as a kind of evidence that just these few groups of animals have self-awareness.” Mancuso believes this is wrong. “Humans, dolphins, a few apes and probably elephants. “Very few animals are able to do this,” says Mancuso. One test for self-awareness in animals is whether they can look in a mirror and understand that they are looking at themselves. Science struggles to view plants as active and motivated because its outlook is so humancentric, he argues. When corn is nibbled by caterpillars, the plant emits a distress signal that lures parasitic wasps to exterminate them “So they have a perfect image of themselves and of the outside,” says Mancuso. They do not grow fast because they know that they are shaded by part of themselves. But when you look into the crown of a tree, all the shoots are heavily shaded. Plants are perfectly aware of themselves.” A simple example is when one plant overshadows another – the shaded plant will grow faster to reach the light. “Consciousness is a little bit tricky in both our languages. “Let’s use another term,” Mancuso suggests. As we learn more about animal and plant intelligence, not to mention human intelligence, the always-contentious term consciousness has become the subject of ever more heated scientific and philosophical debate. One of the most controversial aspects of Mancuso’s work is the idea of plant consciousness. Maybe not as efficient as in the case of animals, but diffused everywhere.” “You need to imagine a plant as a huge brain. “They are very good at diffusing the same function all over the body.” You can remove 90% of a plant without killing it. “Plants use a very different strategy,” says Mancuso. In a plant, a single brain would be a fatal flaw because they have evolved to be lunch. “To find that plants were able to memorise for two months was a surprise.” Not least because they don’t have brains. “That was unexpected because we were thinking about very short memories, in the range of one or two days – the average memory of insects,” says Mancuso. The plants can hold on to this knowledge for weeks, even when their living conditions, such as lighting, are changed. If you let a drop of water fall on a Mimosa pudica, its kneejerk response is to recoil its leaves, but, if you continue doing so, the plant will quickly cotton on that the water is harmless and stop reacting. Mancuso and his colleagues have become experts in training plants, just like neuroscientists train lab rats. Mancuso’s team has shown that Mimosa pudica can retain learned information for weeks. ![]()
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