Secret Life of Plants - Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose

And so, Bose’s private laboratory at Maida Vale became a site of amazement and disbelief. Notable men of science and letters were drawn to Bose’s experiments in plant perception, scientists from the Royal and Linnean societies, as well as the ever-curious vegetarian playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was seized with horror when subjected to the sight of a violently convulsing piece of cabbage gasping in a pot of boiling water. Yet, it is not surprising to learn that Bose — whose scientific inventions and work in radio waves were highly esteemed — struggled to gain proper respect in Western scientific circles for his work in plant biophysics. The above heart-wrenching account of vivisection performed in a Frankenstein-like experiment upon a carrot is typical of those who painted Bose’s work with plants as the stuff of parody.


In a speech presented to the Bengal Literary Conference in 1911, Bose asked:


How are we to know what unseen changes take place within the plant? If it be excited or depressed by some special circumstance, how are we, on the outside, to be made aware of this?.... When an animal receives an external shock it may answer in various ways if it has voice, by a cry; if it be dumb, by the movement of its limbs.

The plant, by contrast, is voiceless, until science came along and allowed us to hear that voice. With the right tools, Bose felt, the secret life of plants is revealed.

- More Here (via aldaily)