"Dr Gagliano and her colleagues trained Mimosa plants' short- and long-term memories under both high and low-light environments by repeatedly dropping water on them using a custom-designed apparatus (Mimosa folds its leaves in response to the drop). They show how Mimosa plants stopped closing their leaves when they learnt that the repeated disturbance had no real damaging consequence. Mimosa plants were able to acquire the learnt behaviour in a matter of seconds and as in animals, learning was faster in less favourable environment (i.e. low light). Most remarkably, these plants were able to remember what had been learned for several weeks, even after environmental conditions had changed."

http://www.news.uwa.edu....imosas-have-memories-too

Some related links on plant communication with sound:

"Shamans say they learn from the plant's sounds. Maybe they are attuned to things we don't pay attention to," Gagliano said. "It's really fascinating. We might have lost that connection and science is ready to rediscover it."

http://www.livescience.c...ees-talk-with-sound.html

http://news.nationalgeog...t-communication-science/

The Michael Pollen article, 'The Intelligent Plant' mentioned in the first link.

http://www.newyorker.com.../23/131223fa_fact_pollan

Bancopuma

Thank you for this interesting and fascinating thread, the beautiful plant Desmodium gyrans comes to mind which is nicknamed the dancing plant.

Codariocalyx motorius


Much Peace and Understanding

Here is the paper by Monica Gagliano cited in one of the articles. I just scanned through it, I am interested in the actual mechanism that makes this possible but this is not really discussed in the paper from what I can tell. Interesting stuff I would be interested in research that is more physiological in nature but related to this topic. The topic of plant learning is fascinating but I think we need to be careful not to personify plants too much as this may be misleading.

..thank you for posting Bancopuma..most interesting..i hope we see more research of this kind in the future..
i subjectively concur with the shamans on plant intelligence...just much harder to see externally than animal intelligence..

Nice read. Although my Mimosas are probably a bit less inclined to learn because they fold their leaves everytime i spray them.

A thing i do notice is that my Mimosa actually reacts to me being near and talking to it. It moves and some of the leaves vibrate. I thought this might be caused by wind of me moving by, but there seems to be movement even when im not moving anymore.

Anyway, im probably imagening things, but its nice to think that the plant knows im there

Nen888

Eloquently said good Sir...


Much Peace and Respect

Thanks for sharing Bancopuma...

Attached is an interesting paper I read on matters discussed in this thread...

Karban, R. 2008. Plant behaviour and communication. Ecology Letters 11: 727-739.

"We are now realizing that plant behaviours are often quite sophisticated and possess attributes that were long considered the exclusive domain of animals with central nervous
systems" (Karban, 2008:733) ...

I also attached the Gagliano, M. article published in Oecologia that is referred to in Bancopuma's linked article.

Gagliano, M., et al. 2014. Experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in environments where it matters. Oecologia: 1-10

Colour

Thank you ever so much for attaching these articles its greatly appreciated.


Much Peace and Kindness

Another one on plant intelligence I saw yesterday

http://phys.org/news/201...intelligent-assumed.html

This just popped up in my facebook feed (gotta love those syncs)

A kickstarter for a midi device that lets plants sing.

MIDI Sprout - Biodata Sonification Device

Ha yeah I funded this a bit...some cool stuff popping up on Kickstarter.