Personality of plants

PLANT INTELLIGENCE
tering into intellectual states of pleasure or
pain.
In view of what has already been said, it
hardly seems necessary to prove the existence of
sensation in plants. The very fact that all life
is a constant response to stimuli and the adjustment
to environment presupposes the existence
of plant sensation. Only a few hours passed in
the investigation of plant habits will show our
vegetable friends giving definite responses to
heat, cold, moisture, light, and touch, while
laboratory experiments show their sensitive
powers of taste and hearing.
The touch sense of the Sundew is developed
to such an extent that it can detect the pressure
of a human hair one twenty-fifth of an inch
long. The tendrils of the Passion Flower at-
tempt to coil up at the slightest contact of the
finger and as quickly flatten out upon its re-
moval. The stamens of the Opuntia or Prickly
Pear have specialized papillae of touch exactly
similar to the papillae of the Hermione
Worm. When rubbed by the body of an in-
sect, they transmit an impulse which causes
the anthers to let loose a shower of pollen on
[i97]