The Cabaret of Plants: Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination

"This book is all about seeing plants: noticing them. Something which I’ve come to take very seriously as a botanist. The Cabaret of Plants brings to life a community of proactive, animal-defying, communicating plants that unfurl and dance across every page: carnivores engulfing insect prey with sinister jaws, orchids mimicking female insects to dupe male insects into mating with them, and arums that raise their own internal temperature to attract pollinating midges. Together, this ‘cabaret’ has the power to change our view of plants as passive objects; above all it gives them personality , and raises an age-old conundrum of whether or not plants can be said to be intelligent. Mabey’s message is that plants are not passive, or victims; rather they are vital, autonomous beings. Listening to them is important for our co-existence. Whether or not plants are intelligent has been controversial historically: they don’t possess a brain of course. But first things first, we first need to define intelligence. If we can define intelligence as quick to adapt – to ‘know’ – or even to change behaviour, then in a sense it is reasonable to describe plants as intelligent organisms, and they achieve these things very well without a nervous system. A moment ago I mentioned carnivorous plants engulfing insect prey – in this case they outsmart animals quite considerably!"