Welcome to Litsy!

I think this was sometimes prone to overexcitement/overstatement of what we can actually prove to be true, since in one chapter it excitedly describes a whole bunch of findings... and then admits that replication has so far failed. It's still interesting to try to view plants as beings with intelligence and agency. The vine that mimics any plant it ends up on sounds fascinating.

I'm not *intentionally* avoiding a #BookSpinBingo... 👀

I am really fascinated by the studies showing that an anaesthetic that works on humans (ether) also works on (some?) plants, in this case touch-sensitive ones! I went into the sources to find the original papers too:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29236942/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230685643_Mimosa_pudica_Dionaea_muscipu...

The latter finds that lidocaine works too! 🤯🤯

I read this for book club and found it absolutely fascinating. The author travels far and wide to learn about the many ways plants confound our expectations and to speak with scientists engaged in cutting edge research to better understand what enables plants to recognize kin, communicate, deploy toxins against enemies, react to sound, and deploy extraordinary camouflage. A thought-provoking read for fans of Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake.

Too true. 🖤

I have a whole new appreciation for plants, the central life on our planet! Without the light eaters, there would be no us, but without us, plants will do just fine. I had my mind blown so many times while reading this book, and there‘s still so much we don‘t yet know about plants. Venus fly traps can count?? So many in the sciences are resistant to the idea that plants can “know” and “feel”, but hopefully new research is helping to change minds.

The botanists are beginning to think there may be a plant consciousness and I am simply overwhelmed by this information. Super fascinating and highly readable account of the massive shifts happening in plant science.

A charming read about the beauty and astonishing facts about plants!