Do plants feel pain?

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In the 1960s Cleve Backster, an interrogation specialist with the CIA (Note: Not a Biologist), conducted experiments that allegedly led him to believe that plants can communicate with other lifeforms. Backster's interest in the subject began in February 1966 when he tried to measure the rate at which water rises from a philodendron's root into its leaves. Because one function of a polygraph or 'lie detector' is to measure electrical resistance (which would decrease when the plant was watered), Backster attached a polygraph to one of the plant's leaves. Backster claimed that, "the tracing began to show a pattern typical of the response you get when you subject a human to emotional stimulation of short duration".

However, Backster did not account for electrolysis occurring between the electrodes and the plants.

In 1975, K. A. Horowitz, D. C. Lewis and E. L. Gasteiger published an article in Science giving their results when repeating one of Backster's effects -- plant response to the killing of brine shrimp in boiling water. The researchers grounded the plants to reduce electrical interference and rinsed them to remove dust particles. As a control three of five pipettes contained brine shrimp while the remaining two only had water: the pipettes were delivered to the boiling water at random. This investigation used a total of 60 brine shrimp deliveries to boiling water while Backster's had used 13. Positive correlations did not occur at a rate great enough to be considered statistically significant. Other controlled experiments that attempted to replicate Backster's findings have also produced negative results.

In other words, Backster's alleged results could not be repeated.

Botanist Arthur Galston and physiologist Clifford L. Slayman who investigated Backster's claims wrote:

• "There is no objective scientific evidence for the existence of such complex behaviour in plants. The recent spate of popular literature on 'plant consciousness' appears to have been triggered by 'experiments' with a lie detector, subsequently reported and embellished in a book called The Secret Life of Plants. Unfortunately, when scientists in the discipline of plant physiology attempted to repeat the experiments, using either identical or improved equipment, the results were uniformly negative. Further investigation has shown that the original observations arose from defective measuring procedures."

John M. Kmetz noted that Backster had not used proper controls in his experiments. When controls were used, no plant reactions to thoughts or threats were observed.

Later experiments with an EEG have failed to detect anything. The conclusion is that the results were not repeatable, and that Backster's "theory" and the results of his experiments are simply not true.

Does hay get hayfever?

If you worry that everything around you can feel pain and suffering you will drive yourself insane. It's best not to think about it.

Tulips can talk. After all, they're two lips.

^ I liked the cactus.

They don't have a central nervous system, so NO.