Can Plants See? The Experiment That Baffled Scientists

An American writer named Benji Jones once revealed a discovery that sounds almost unbelievable. It describes a plant that appears to “know” what is growing beside it and changes its appearance accordingly.

A Plant That Copies Its Neighbors

The discovery was made by plant ecologist Ernesto Gianoli while exploring the rainforests of southern Chile. There, he noticed something extraordinary. A common plant known as Harina was growing alongside a much rarer bush called Boquila trifoliolata. Normally, the leaves of the Boquila are thick and rounded with three distinct points. But in this case, the Boquila’s leaves looked almost identical to those of the Harina growing next to it.

At first, this seemed like coincidence. But Gianoli’s curiosity was sparked.

How the Mimicry Works

As he continued his research, Gianoli tracked additional Boquila plants and noticed a remarkable pattern. One Boquila growing beside a vine developed leaves that looked like the vine’s. Another growing near a climbing shrub produced leaves similar to that shrub. Again and again, the same phenomenon appeared. The Boquila was copying whatever plant happened to be next to it.

After careful study, Gianoli confirmed that this behavior was real and well documented. The Boquila adapts its leaf shape to match its surroundings.

This immediately raises a puzzling question. How does the plant know what its neighbor looks like? Plants have no eyes and no nervous system. And yet, this plant behaves as if it can observe and imitate.

One possible explanation is protection. Because the Boquila is rare, blending in may help it survive. If insects prefer the taste of Boquila leaves, disguising itself as a common plant could keep it from being eaten. To a predator, it simply looks like part of the forest.

Jones himself does not claim that plants literally see. Still, he notes that this discovery stretches the limits of everything scientists believed about plant behavior. Some researchers have cautiously suggested that plants may possess cells that function in a way similar to sight. Others have proposed that the Boquila somehow absorbs genetic information from neighboring plants and uses it as its own blueprint.

A Test With Plastic Plants

That idea already sounds surprising. But an even more startling experiment followed.

A plant enthusiast named Jacob White decided to test the theory in a simple way. He planted Boquila next to artificial plastic plants. These plastic plants contain no genetic material at all. The only way to mimic them would be through visual information.

Astonishingly, the Boquila copied the plastic leaves as well.

Scientists were understandably skeptical. Still, journalist Denise O’Leary documented the experiment in detail and argued that it was too early to dismiss the findings. Time and again, science has revealed that reality is far more complex than we imagine. Even bacteria display behaviors that appear purposeful.

Consciousness in Nature

Some thinkers have taken this idea even further. Biologist Stephen Meyer has suggested that nature itself may possess a form of underlying awareness or intelligence.

Interestingly, this idea is not new. Maimonides taught that even the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, and the earth, possess a form of consciousness and praise their Creator, as we express in our prayers.

Whatever explanation one prefers, one thing is clear. Purely materialistic evolutionary explanations currently fall short of accounting for this phenomenon. A plant that adapts its form to match both living and artificial neighbors remains a mystery.

Sometimes, nature does not simply function. It amazes.