For centuries, plants have been regarded as passive creatures. Their development is thought to be predetermined, with only temporary interruptions in response to stress. Because plants lack obvious visible movement, they seem to be bereft of behaviour and intelligence. Yet they dominate every landscape, representing 99% of the biomass of the Earth. There is a clear conflict between the commonly held view and the success of plant life. Only now are we beginning to expose the remarkable complexity of plant behaviour. A revolution is sweeping away the detritus of passivity, replacing it with an exciting dynamic — the investigation of plant intelligence is becoming a serious scientific endeavour.

From their evolutionary beginnings, photosynthesizing plants eschewed movement because light was freely available. But colonization of the land meant that essential resources were distributed as a spatial and temporal mosaic, and competition for them became more fierce. For the sessile plant, new forms of behaviour evolved to allow efficient foraging in the local environment. Growth (and embryogenesis) continued throughout the life cycle but instead of a predetermined programme, development was adapted plastically to respond to changing environmental resources and characteristics.

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