I am always interested in gardening and it is one of my favorite hobby to grow plants and flowers. I still remember the days when I grew "sanghu pushpam (in Tamil)" (English name: Butterfly pea, Biological name: Clitoria ternatea) flowering plant. It was like my pet plant and I used to talk with it everyday.
While adoring the plants I also developed a skill to observe it closely and recognize the way they grow.
Now I have some plants in our yard and on close observation I found something interesting which I would like to record and share. It is about the plant "sweet peas" which is a climber plant. It took some days for me to arrange some stick lines for it to climb. But by that time, it had grown well and it seems was already in search of something to climb.. It can be seen from this picture how the tendrils reach out to see if it finds something to climb on.
So in fact, the tendrils act like proximity sensors and react based on some physical object nearby. Once these tendrils finds some physical objects like stick, grass, stones or other plants nearby, they curl themselves with the object and starts growing over them. Like this sweet peas plant whose tendrils have identified the nearby grass and got a hold of it.
That was indeed wonderful isn't it.. I am sure that I am not the first person to recognize this "search and hold" activity of these climber plants. But for me personally, it is interesting to observe them growing.
As a person who has learned some Electronics, I can say that the proximity sensors work based on the amount of light that fall on the sensor and react to the intensity of light. They have some transistors and diodes which does these kinda work. The climbers as proximity sensors made me think how they do this search and more importantly what ingredient in it is doing that logic?! (as equivalent to transistors or diodes)
Perhaps some one well versed in botany studies and has expertise might know the answer.
If you, readers have some ideas or thoughts about this, please do share them with me here.
Nature is full of wonders and I wish I do not stop just wondering, but go ahead to find the truth behind it.
And, that can happen only with God's grace - Nature's creator.
While adoring the plants I also developed a skill to observe it closely and recognize the way they grow.
Now I have some plants in our yard and on close observation I found something interesting which I would like to record and share. It is about the plant "sweet peas" which is a climber plant. It took some days for me to arrange some stick lines for it to climb. But by that time, it had grown well and it seems was already in search of something to climb.. It can be seen from this picture how the tendrils reach out to see if it finds something to climb on.
So in fact, the tendrils act like proximity sensors and react based on some physical object nearby. Once these tendrils finds some physical objects like stick, grass, stones or other plants nearby, they curl themselves with the object and starts growing over them. Like this sweet peas plant whose tendrils have identified the nearby grass and got a hold of it.
That was indeed wonderful isn't it.. I am sure that I am not the first person to recognize this "search and hold" activity of these climber plants. But for me personally, it is interesting to observe them growing.
As a person who has learned some Electronics, I can say that the proximity sensors work based on the amount of light that fall on the sensor and react to the intensity of light. They have some transistors and diodes which does these kinda work. The climbers as proximity sensors made me think how they do this search and more importantly what ingredient in it is doing that logic?! (as equivalent to transistors or diodes)
Perhaps some one well versed in botany studies and has expertise might know the answer.
If you, readers have some ideas or thoughts about this, please do share them with me here.
Nature is full of wonders and I wish I do not stop just wondering, but go ahead to find the truth behind it.
And, that can happen only with God's grace - Nature's creator.
Most of the epiphytes has aerial roots..hence the climber looks for a wall or some object to stick over that with its adhesive property on the root..
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