Can Plants See? This One Might

The 2024 Ig Nobel Prize in Botany went to one of the wildest plant studies ever: a Chilean vine called Boquila trifoliolata that can copy the shape and look of nearby leaves — even if those leaves are fake plastic! Yes, this plant doesn’t just mimic real neighbors; it transformed its own leaves to match artificial ones placed nearby, adjusting their shape, size, and even internal structure. No touch, no chemical signals — just visual mimicry. How? Scientists now think plants might actually be able to see. The idea of “plant vision” sounds like science fiction, but this study suggests it might be real, possibly through light-sensitive cells that detect the shape of nearby objects. A plant that mimics plastic leaves because it can see them? That’s not just botany — that’s botanical espionage.

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