The Intelligent Plant - Michael Pollan
michaelpollan.com
In 1973, a book claiming that plants were sentient beings that feel emotions, prefer classical music to rock and roll, and can respond to the unspoken thoughts of humans hundreds of miles away landed on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. “The Secret Life of Plants,” by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, presented a beguiling mashup of legitimate plant science, quack experiments, and mystical nature worship that captured the public imagination at a time when New Age thinking was seeping into the mainstream.

Plants react to and communicate with their environment in sometimes surprising ways that enhance their survival in changing conditions. Does this constitute intelligence? Can you have intelligence without a brain? What do we owe plants? Maybe a little overlong and meandering but important piece. It’s a decade old so I wonder how the research has developed since then.