The Secret life of Plants

The Secret Life of Plants: by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, 1973

reading_notes by Cocky_Eek in progress

—At the beginning of the twentieth century Viennese biologist Raoul Francé put forth the idea, shocking to contemporary natural philosophers, that plants move their bodies as freely, easily, and gracefully as the most skilled animal or human, and that the only reason we don't appreciate the fact is that plants do so at a much slower pace than humans.

—No plant is without movement; he describes a summer day with thousands of polyplike arms reaching from a peaceful arbor, trembling, quivering in their eagerness for new support for the heavy stalk that grows behind them. When the tendril, which sweeps a full circle in sixty-seven minutes, finds a perch, within twenty seconds it starts to curve around the object, and within the hour has wound itself so firmly it is hard to tear away. The tendril then curls itself like a corkscrew and in so doing raises the vine to itself.

—Plants, says Francé, are capable of intent- they can stretch toward, or seek out, what they want in ways as mysterious as the most fantastic creations of romance.

—the inhabitants of the pasture -or botane- appear to be able to perceive and to react to what is happening in their environment at a level of sophistication far surpassing that of humans.

—Some parasitical plants can recognize the slightest trace of the odor of their victim, and will overcome all obstacles to crawl in its direction.

—Plants seem to know which ants will steal their nectar, closing when these ants are about, opening only when there is enough dew on their stems to keep the ants from climbing. The more sophisticated acacia actually enlists the protective services of certain ants which it rewards with nectar in return for the ants' protection against other insects and herbivorous mammals.

— The ingenuity of plants in devising forms of construction far exceeds that of human engineers. Man-made structures cannot match the supply strength of the long hollow tubes that support fantastic weights against terrific storms…

—the orchid Trichoceros parviflorus will grow its petals to imitate the female of a species of fly so exactly that the male attempts to mate with it and in so doing pollinates the orchid…. night-blossoming flowers grow white the better to attract night moths and night-flying butterflies, emitting a stronger fragrance at dusk, ….the carrion lily develops the smell of rotting meat in areas where only flies abound, …. flowers which rely on the wind cross-pollinate the species do not waste energy on making themselves beautiful, fragrant or appealing to insects, but remain relatively unattractive.

——the leaves of the sunflower plant, Silphium laciniatum, accurately indicate the points of the compass. Indian licorice, or Arbrus precatorius, is so keenly sensitive to all forms of electrical and magnetic influences it is used as a weather plant. Botanists who first experimented with it in London's Kew Gardens found in it a means for predicting cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. So accurate are alpine flowers about the seasons, they know when spring is coming and bore their way up through lingering snowbanks, developing their own heat with which to melt the snow. France insists that plants are constantly observing and recording events and phenomena of which man-trapped in his anthropocentric view of the world, subjectively revealed to him through his five senses-knows nothing. Plants have beenfound to be able to distinguish between sounds inaudible to the human ear and color wavelengths such as infra- red and ultraviolet invisible to the human eye; they are specially sensitive to X-rays and to the high frequency of television.

— The most effective way to trigger in a human being a reaction strong enough to make the galvanometer jump is to threaten his or her well- being. Cleve Backster, America's foremost lie-detector decided to do just that to his plant; a Dracaena massangeana: he dunked a leaf in the cup of hot coffee perennially in his hand. There was no reaction to speak of on the meter. Backster studied the problem several minutes, then conceived a worse threat: he would burn the actual leaf to which the electrodes were attached. The instant he got the picture of flame in his mind, and before he could move for a match, there was a dramatic change in the tracing pattern on the graph in the form of a prolonged upward sweep of the recording pen. Backster had not moved, either toward the plant or toward the recording machine. Could the plant have been reading his mind?

—“Luminescence in Liquids and Solids and Their Practical Application” by Marcel Vogel. He developed a variety of new products: the red color seen on television screens; fluorescent crayons; tags for insecticides; a “black light” inspection kit to determine, from their urine, the secret trackways of rodents in cellars, sewers, and slums.

—Vogel found that some of the philodendrons he worked with responded faster, others more slowly, some very distinctly, others less distinctly, and that not only plants but their individual leaves had their own unique personality and individuality. Leaves with a large electrical resistance were especially difficult to work with; fleshy leaves with a high water content were the best. Plants appeared to go through phases of activity and inactivity, full of response at certain times of the day or days of the month, “sluggish” or “morose” at other times. To make sure that none of these recording effects was the result of faulty electroding, Vogel developed a mucilaginous substance composed of a solution of agar, with a thickener of karri gum, and salt. This paste he brushed onto the leaves before gently applying carefully polished one-by-one-and-a-half-inch stainless-steel electrodes. When the agar jelly hardened around the edges of the electronic pickups, it sealed their faces into a moist interior, virtually eliminating all the variability in signal output caused by pressure on leaves when clamped between ordi- nary electrodes. This system produced for Vogel a base line on the chart that Was perfectly straight, without oscillations.

—“How about sex?” To their surprise, the plant came to life, the pen recorder oscillating wildly on the chart. This led to speculation that talking of sex could stir up in the atmosphere some sort of sexual energy such as the “orgone” discovered and described by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, and that the ancient fertility rites in which humans had sexual intercourse in freshly seeded fields might indeed have stimulated plants to grow.

—electronics engineer L. George Lawrence believed that biological radiations transmitted by living things are best received by a biological medium. biological-type sensors are needed in order to intercept biological signals, applies particularly to communications from outer space. As he puts it: “Standard electronics are next to worthless here, since 'bio-signals' apparently reside outside of the known electromagnetic spectrum.”

—1920s the Russian histologist Alexander Gurwitsch and his wife, proclaimed that all living cells produce an invisible radiation.

—1969. Lawrence; Four main questions, were starting to attract serious attention: Could plants be integrated with electronic readouts to form major data sensors and transducers? Could they be trained to respond to the presence of selected objects and images? Were their alleged supersensory perceptions verifiable? Of the 350,000 plant species known to science, which were the most promising from the electronic point of view? Pg 56

“There are certain qualities here,” he wrote, “which do not enter into normal experimental situations. According to those experimenting in this area, it is necessary to have a 'green thumb' and, most important, a genuine love for plants.” Pg 57

—film by Panishkin “Are Plants Sentient?”

—biologist Karamanov published “The Application of Automation and Cybernetics to Plant Husbandry.” He builded a.o. microthermistors, weight tensiometers, to register the temperature of plants, the flow rate of fluid in their stems and leaves, the intensity of their transpiration, their growth rates, and characteristics of their radiation. He picked up detailed information on when and how much a plant wants to drink, whether it craves more nourishment or is too hot or cold.

–He showed that an ordinary bean plant had acquired the equivalent of “hands” to signal an instrumental brain how much light it needed. When the brain sent “hands” signals, “they had only to press a switch, and the plant was thus afforded the capability of independently establishing the optimal length of its 'day' and 'night.' ” Later, the same bean plant, having acquired the equivalent of “legs,” was able instrumentally to signal whenever it wanted water. “Showing itself to be a fully rational being,” the account continued, “it did not guzzle the water indiscriminately but limited itself to a two-minute drink each hour, thus regulating its water need with the help of an artificial mechanism. Pg 67

—Beans, potatoes, wheat, and crowfoot after proper “instruction” seemed to have the capability of remembering the frequency of Hashes from a xenon-hydrogen lamp. The plants repeated the pulsations with “exceptional accuracy,” and since crowfoot was able to repeat a given frequency after a pause as long as eighteen hours it was possible to speak of “Long-term” memory in plants. The scientists next went on, to condition a philodendron to recognize when a piece of mineralized rock was put beside it. Using the system developed by Pavlov with dogs, whereby he discovered the “conditioned reflex,” the Kazakh scientists simultaneously “punished” a philodendron with an electrical shock each time a mineralized ore was placed next to it. They reported that, after condi- tioning, the same plant, anticipating the hurtful shock, would get “emo- tionally upset” whenever the block of ore was put beside it. Further- more, said the Kazakh scientists, the plant could distinguish between mineralized ore and a similar piece of barren rock containing no miner- als, a feat which might indicate that plants will one day be used in geological prospecting. Pg 69

—V.n. Pushkin, psychological scientist surmised that a hypnotized person should be able to send emotions to a plant more directly and spontaneously than a person in a normal state. Hypnotizing a young girl by the name of Tanya, who was described by Pushkin as of “lively temperament and spontaneous emotionality,” they first implanted in her the notion that she was one of the most beautiful women in the world, then the notion that she was freezing in harsh raw weather. At each change in the girl's mood the plant, which was attached to an encephalograph, responded with an appropriate pattern on the graph. “We were able,” says Pushkin “to get an electrical reaction as many times as we worked, even to the most arbitrary commands.”

—Pushkin and Fetisov decided to see whether the plant could detect a lie, as Backster had claimed. It was suggested to Tanya that she thinks of a number from 1 to 10. At the same time she was told she would never reveal the number, even if pressed to do so. When the researchers counted slowly from I to 10, pausing after each digit to inquire whether it was the one she had thought of, each time Tanya responded with a decisive “No!” Though the psychologists could not see any difference in her answers, the plant gave a specific and clear reaction to her internal state when the number 5 was counted. It was the number which Tanya had selected and promised not to reveal. Pg 71

—plants have memory. They are able to gather impressions and retain them over long periods. We had a man molest, even torture, a geranium for several days in a row. He pinched it, tore it, pricked its leaves with a needle, dripped acid on its living tissues, burned it with a lighted match, and cut its roots. Another man took tender care of the same geranium, watered it, worked its soil, sprayed it with fresh water, supported its heavy branches, and treated its burns and wounds. When we e1ectroded our instruments to the plant, what do you think? No sooner did the torturer come near the plant than the recorder of the instrument began to go wild. The plant didn't just get “nervous”; it was afraid, it was horrified. If it could have, it would have either thrown itself out the window or attacked its torturer. Hardly had this inquisitor left and the good man taken his place near the plant than the geranium was appeased, its impulses died down, the recorder traced out smooth- one might almost say tender-lines on the graph. Pg 73

—In addition to a plant's ability to recognize friend and foe, Soviet researchers also noted that one plant supplied with water can somehow share it with a deprived neighbor. In one institute of research a cornstalk planted in a glass container was denied water for several weeks. Yet it did not die; it remained as healthy as other cornstalks planted in normal conditions nearby. In some way, water was transferred from healthy plants to the “prisoner” in the jar. Yet they have no idea how this was accomplished. Pg 73

—As fantastic as this may seem, a kind of plant-to-plant transfer has been taking place in England in experiments begun in 1972 by Dr. A. R. Bailey. Two plants in an artificially lit greenhouse in which temper- ature, humidity, and light were carefully controlled were suffering from lack of water. Bailey and his collaborator measured the voltages gene- rated between two parts of both plants. When one plant was watered from the outside through plastic tubes, the other plant reacted. As Bailey told the British Society of Dowsers: “There was no electrical connection between them, no physical connection whatsoever, but somehow one plant picked up what was going on with the other.” Pg 74

—research of the American Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin in photo· synthesis, wherein he discovered that plant chlorophyll under the influence of the sun's rays can give up electrons to a semiconductor such as zincoxide. Melvin and his co-workers created a “green photoelement,” which produced a current of approximately 0.1 microamperes per square centimeter. After several minutes, the plant chlorophyll becomes desensitized or “exhausted,” but its life could be extended by the addition of hydroquinone to the salt solution which acts as an electrolyte. The chlorophyll seems to act as a kind of electron pump passing electrons from the hydroquinone to the semiconductor. Calvin has calculated that a chlorophyll photoelement with an area of ten square meters could yield a kilowatt of power. He has theorized that in the next quarter century such photoelements could be manufac· tured on an industrial scale and would be a hundred times cheaper than silicone solar batteries now being experimented with. Pg 76