The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso 
This book came out in 2018, and the subtitle is A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior.

Oh, my dear horticultural enthusiasts, have you ever paused to ponder the silent, green sentinels that grace our gardens?

Stefano Mancuso, a botanical luminary, invites us into a realm of wonder with his groundbreaking work, The Revolutionary Genius of Plants.

Humble plants, often overlooked as mere decoration, harbor a world of secrets waiting to be unveiled.

With a lyrical prose that dances across the page, Stefano dismantles our preconceived notions about these verdant beings.

No longer shall we dismiss them as passive, mindless organisms. Stefano reveals a world of intricate intelligence, where plants possess memory, problem-solving abilities, and even a sense of self-preservation. They communicate, learn, and adapt, all without a central nervous system.

The Wall Street Journal raved about Stefano's book, writing:

In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the 'higher' form of life.

Meanwhile, Stefano's editor introduces his work this way:

..world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones.

Imagine a world where trees can detect danger and warn their kin, where flowers can remember past experiences, and where roots can navigate complex underground labyrinths. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but Stefano's research brings these extraordinary abilities to life.

With each page, we are captivated by the intricate details of plant behavior, from their ingenious strategies for survival to their uncanny ability to sense their environment. Stefano's infectious enthusiasm for his subject matter is contagious and makes complex scientific concepts accessible to even the most novice gardener.

In his book, Stefano broaches the controversial topic of plant memory this way,

After years spent investigating the many aspects of plant intelligence, I have been consistently surprised and fascinated by plants' clear capacity for memory. Maybe that sounds strange, but think about it for a moment. It isn't too difficult to imagine that intelligence is not the product of one single organ but that it is inherent to life, whether there is a brain or not.

Plants, from this point of view, are the most obvious demonstration of how the vertebrate brain is an "accident," evolved only in a very small number of living beings-animals-while in the vast majority of life, represented by plant organisms, intelligence-the ability to learn, understand, and react successfully to new or trying situations--has developed without a dedicated organ.

All plants are capable of learning from experience and therefore have memorization mechanisms. If you submit a plant, for example an olive tree, to a stress such as drought or salinity, it will respond by implementing the necessary modifications to its anatomy and metabolism to ensure its survival. Nothing unusual in that, right? 

If, after a certain amount of time, we submit the same plant to the exact same stimulus, perhaps with an even stronger intensity, we notice something that is surprising only on the surface: this time, the plant responds more effectively to the stress than it did the first time. It has learned its lesson.

Somewhere it has preserved traces of the solutions found and, when there was a need, has quickly recalled them in order to react more efficiently and accurately. In other words, it learned and stored the best answers in its memory, thereby increasing its chances of survival.

Stefano's clarity and conversational tone take these scientifically modern concepts and help us see plants in a new way.

So, let us cast aside our gardening gloves and embark on a journey of discovery.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the beauty and complexity of the natural world. It will leave you with a newfound respect for the humble plant and a burning desire to delve deeper into the mysteries of the botanical kingdom.

This book is 240 pages of the latest plant research and gorgeous botanical photographs to illustrate some wild ideas about the plant world.

You can get a copy of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $4.