Annals of Botany 93: 345-351, 2004
© 2004 Annals of Botany Company
Plant Intelligence: an Alternative Point of View
Department of Biology, University of York, PO Box 373, York YO10 5YW, UK
* For correspondence. Fax 01904 328505, e-mail drf1{at}york.ac.uk
Received: 9 September 2003; Returned for revision: 24 October 2003; Accepted: 8 January 2003
The concept of plant intelligence has been advanced by Trewavas as a potentially useful framework to guide those seeking to understand plant growth and development. In this short critique, the validity of this concept is critically assessed. Central to this critique is the proposition that the concept of the individual, to which intelligence and behaviour are intimately linked, cannot usefully be applied to plants. It is argued that the adaptive responses of plants are best appreciated if the importance of the autonomy of the individual organs is acknowledged. Although Trewavas does acknowledge the autonomy of organs by describing an individual plant as being ‘a democratic confederation’, that terminology implies a complexity to the interaction between organs which would demand a cogitative ability beyond that actually demonstrated in plants. It may be more appropriate to consider a plant as operating normally as a simple economic federation of many specialized economies (organs and cells). Occasionally, there can be a dramatic, and sometimes complex, reshaping of the economic balances, with the result that the fate of some or many of the individual cells will change. However, such major changes in growth and development are driven by a few simple events in an individual organ and cells. These driving events are more akin to small local revolutions in individual states than they are to democratic decisions in a sophisticated confederation.
Key words: Phenotypic plasticity, adaptation, development, individuality, intelligence, plant behaviour.