Bonus Blog - “Do Plants Have Emotions? You Decide…” - By Judy Fenyvesi - 23rd November 2006

Plants May Have Emotions
An American lie detector expert once attached a machine to the leaves of a philodendron and was surprised to find that it produced a reading similar to that of a human being who has been subjected to emotional stimulation.

He decided to experiment further by burning the leaf of the plant. While he was thinking about doing this the tracing pattern began to sweep upwards dramatically. He had apparently frightened the plant with his thoughts. He concluded not only that plants have emotions, but that they are capable of some form of telepathy.

Lie Detectors Used On Plants
The lie detector or polygraph machine detects minute changes in the temperature of a person’s skin, the blood pressure and moisture of the skin - these changes can point to stress and possibly indicate when a person is lying.

Cleve Backster, an American lie-detector expert, wired up one of his house plants to a polygraph and obtained the most startling results; not only did the plant respond to watering as he expected them to, but more strangely they responded to the death of an unrelated species - small shrimps.

Backster dropped live brine into boiling water in the same room as a potted palm which he had wired up to a polygraph machine. The plant responded to the death of each shrimp, even though Backster had used a randomly automated machine to drop the shrimps. Even more strangely the plant did not respond when dead shrimps were dropped into the boiling water.

Other researchers have carried on with this research and find that plants seem in some way to observe behaviour around them.

In an experiment carried out by Lyall Watson, a plant was uprooted by a member of the research team in a room containing another plant of the same species which was wired up to a polygraph.

When a group of five other researchers approached the surviving plant, there was no reaction, but when the researcher who had uprooted the first plant approached there was a significant response which seemed to prove that the wired-up plant had in some way remembered and identified the killer of its partner.

Perhaps this response gives us the reason for the belief the some people have “green fingers” and seem to be able to grow anything while others have little success in the garden - maybe the plants respond to people who approach them lovingly and flourish accordingly.

Until my next blog, take care and don’t forget that you can visit my website at
www.gardendesigner.co.uk

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