The Secret Life of Plants －future possibilities of communicating with plants

Many years ago I read The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird and found it very intriguing. Do you think plants that lack brains and nervous or sensory organs can feel?

Most people think that animals are sentient but plants are not. The book however claims that plants experience emotions and thoughts and that plants can read human minds. The Washington Post and Newsweek once reviewed the book favorably though it has often been considered to be pseudo-scientific.

This fascinating book roams...over that marvelous no man's land of mystical glimmerings into the nature of   science and life itself.     　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ーThe Washington Post

Floranium lamps, which were inspired by Cleve Backster’s polygraph tests with plants in the book, have been created. You can interact with your green plants using the lamps! WOW!

I have suspected for a long time that plants can somehow understand human emotions. I once had the honor of interviewing Dr. Yuji Dogane ( 銅金裕司 ）, who let me listen to the hidden voices of some orchids which were extracted from the data of slight changes of electric potential found on the surface of their leaves. The sound I heard was enigmatic but at the same time interesting. It was made possible by an apparatus called a  “Plantron” which was developed by him. If you are interested in it, watch the youtube video here ( it is in Japanese but you can hear the music-like plant voices).

The Extrasensory perception of plants

Listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother Nature has to teach, shedding light on that which was before a mystery, so that all who will, may see and know.－Luther Burbank

When reading what Luther Burbank, an American botanist and horticulturist who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants, once said about plants, I smell a new future coming in which we can appreciate more bountiful blessings of plants by having some kind of communication with them.

Autumn leaves are now falling and whirling around and paths are covered with a soft carpet of fallen leaves. When I step on dead leaves and hear them crunch,  I often drift into humming “Autumn Leaves”. In town many versions of the French song "Les Feuilles mortes (Yves Montand): Dead Leaves, the English title of the song is Autumn Leaves” can be heard sometimes in French and in English and sometimes in Japanese. This song has been very popular in Japan since its first release in France in 1945. I love the 2010 Eric Clapton jazzy version of the song as well as the original.   

autumn clouds

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. －Albert Camus

Have a nice day!

*photography was permitted by the young ladies(smile).