Transparent albino avocado leaf.Ā Albino plants are white because they lack green chlorophyll in their leaves. Since plants use chlorophyll to convert sunlight to energy (photosynthesis), this is a severe problem. Albino plants canāt eat. Most albino plants are born, grow a little and then run out of food and die. Some albino plants survive by eating off other plants. (Source)
Technically, albinism means lacking melanin, so a plant cannot be an
albino. They do however have their own version – a plant that lacks
chlorophyll. They are unable to photosynthesize, so must live
parasitically off of other redwood trees in order to survive.
There are only approximately 60 āalbinoā redwoods known and their locations are kept top secret.
This naturally-occurring alkaloid is a highly toxic compound most commonly known as the active ingredient in the leaves of poison hemlock. Historically known across multiple cultures for its poisonous properties, hemlock is most famously known in real life as the substance that Socrates died by, and in fiction is referenced by Shakespeare in both Hamlet and Macbeth.Ā Coniine affects the peripheral nervous system, blocking the nicotinic receptors of neuromuscular junctions in a manner similar to curare, the tree-frog poison. This nerve blockage results inĀ ā ascending flaccid paralysisā where the victim becomes unable to operate their muscles, starting from the lower limbs upwards. Death eventually results as the muscles of the diaphragm shut down, preventing breathing, but as the central nervous system is unaffected, the victim remains conscious throughout this process.
Fairy fire also called fox fireĀ is the bioluminescence created by some species of fungiĀ located in decaying wood. The bluish-green glow is attributed to an enzyme reaction. It is believed that the light attracts insects to spread spores, or acts as a warning to hungry animals.
this is actually a small sub branch of botany thats been growing and gaining some recognition in the past 5 years or so called plant cognition! weāve been thinking about if plants can possibly be intelligent to any degree for centuries, but the main paper that started up this huge discussion in the modern era was one called Experience Teaches Plants to Learn Faster and Forget Slower in Environments Where It Matters by Monica Gagliano, a plant researcher in Australia who specializes in it. because the results indicated that plants were possible of learning and retaining information in a kind of memory in response to environmental changes, it received a lot of backlash and denial- generally in science, that kind of intelligent reaction to an organismās environment is a good indicator of cognitive behavior in the organism. it got rejected by 10 different journals before being published in 2014.Ā
the experiment worked like this. iāve talked before about mimosa pudica, a tropical plant that curls its leaves back when touched (they go back to normal in a few minutes):
this is to help deter predators among other things. but in this experiment, Gagliano used it as an indicator of stimulus and to test cognitive function. Itās well known that pudica has a rudimentary nervous system that can even be temporarily inhibited using anesthetics (just like ours can!). she hooked up a ton of these plants in pots to identical rail systems that allowed them to be lightly dropped in an identical way, juuuuust heavy enough to trigger the stimulus so all the leaves drop down when they hit the bottom (a piece of foam so they wouldnāt actually hurt the plants). every time the plants would be dropped, they would close up.Ā
but after the plants were dropped about 60 times each, they stopped responding to the drop.Ā
they remembered that no harm was coming from this actionand decided that it was against their best interests to keep expending energy closing their leaves. they 200% learned to stop.Ā
she decided to test it further. she put some of the plants in a shaker and let them receive a more jarring response; the plants closed up as usual. then, she put them back in the droppers and dropped them again. they didnāt close up. they had remembered that response. this dispels the obvious rebuttalĀ to this experiment of the plants just being tired; they still closed up when stimulated differently.
they just chose not to close up when they hit a stimulus they remembered.Ā
it turns out that not only could they remember to keep their leaves open when dropped on the apparatus, but they remembered afterĀ 28 days when she kept testing it!! apparently by the end of the experiment, all the plants had decided to keep their leaves open when dropped!!!!
how do they do this?? we literally dont know. they have no central brain, only a basic nervous system. can other plants do this???Ā
well, adding onto that, venus fly traps can count! like. they have three hairs inside their traps, and all three must be touched within 20 seconds for the trap to close. once closed, those three trigger hairs must continue to be stimulated by thrashing prey, or the trap will reopen.Ā
so yeah like. basically āare they sentientā: apparently to an extent???? we dont know exactly why or how but they are??? maybe???? sort of????? at least some of them are?? but they dont have a brain so everyones like????????????????????? maybe its through a signaling network????????????????? but like how would that even work?????????
plant consciousnessĀ is still new enough to be dismissed as crazy by a lot of biologists but like. the evidence is there. we donāt know a whole lot and its clearly a radically different kind of intelligence than we know in animals, but itās there and we 200% dont know how it works yet or even the full extent of how plants use this intelligence (for example: does a redwood have the same intelligence as a venus fly trap?? how does it learn things and use that knowledge???)Ā
national geographic wrote an awesome article visualizing the experiment here if you want to read more!
š„ There is beauty in destructionš„ 