Can plants remember?

It was a throw away question from Phil, something he said in the middle of an episode as a joke. Obviously plants have no memory—how could they when they have no central nervous system, no brain with which to learn. However, a bit of digging and the answer turns out to be a bit stranger than expected. Join us as we talk about plant communication and memory.

Here are a couple of articles about plant communication.

How Plants Secretly Talk to Each Other

Plant communication

Here’s a tedtalk about how trees communicate through their roots.

Suzanne Simard: How trees talk to each other

Here’s a video of the Venus flytrap.

VENUS FLYTRAP JAWS OF DOOM!!

Here’s a video of the tickle me plant, AKA. mimosa pudica.

Mimosa Pudica - The Sensitive Plant

Here’s an article about how the Venus flytrap remembers and reacts to how often it’s sensory hairs have been touched.

Venus Flytraps Are Even Creepier Than We Thought

Here’s a quick press release about learning in the tickle me plant.

Move over elephants – plants have memories too

And here’s an article about the study of memory in the plant kingdom.

Learning in Plants: Lessons from Mimosa pudica