People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1893 — A PLANT THAT CAN SEE. [ARTICLE]

A PLANT THAT CAN SEE.

Interesting Observations Made by an Indian Botanist. Darwin, in his book on “Movement in Plants,” is of the opinion that many plants may be said to have sight, and the investigations of other famed botanists have confirmed him. An Indian botanist relates the following remarkable incident: “I was sitting in the veranda with one foot against a large pillar, near to which grows a large kind of convolvulus. Its tendrils were leaning over the veranda and to my surprise I noticed that they were visibly turning toward my leg. I remained in that position and in less than An hour the tendrils had laid themselves over my leg. This was in the early morning, and when at breakfast I told my wife of this discovery we determined to make further experiments. When we went out into the veranda the tendrils had turned their heads back to the railing in disgust. We got a pole and leaned it against the pillar quite twelve inches from the nearest spray of convolvulus. In ten minutes they began to curve themselves in that direction, and acted exactly as you might fancy a very slow snake would act if he wanted to reach anything. The upper tendrils bent down and the side ones curved themselves till they touched the pole, and in a few hours were twisted right around it. It was on the side away from the light and, excepting the faculty of sight, I can imagine no other means by which the tendrils could be aware that the pole had been placed there. They had to turn away from the light to meet it, and they set themselves visibly toward it within a few minutes of the pole being placed there."