Bright flashes running down the spines of shameplant leaves as their leaflets begin to close up
Flashes of light shoot along the spines of fluorescent-stained leaves from the ‘touch-me-not’ plant as they fold up. The shameplant (Mimosa pudica), also known as the touch-me-not, is renowned for its ability to quickly curl up its leaves when they are touched by retracting the leaves’ elongated, pine-like leaflets back towards its central spine. However, until now, the exact mechanisms behind this animal-like reflex have largely remained a mystery. A team of researchers created genetically altered fluorescent shameplants and filmed their leaves as they curled up. The resulting footage revealed that both chemical and electrical signals moved in unison through the leaves and triggered the leaflets to be pulled back. “Plants possess various communication systems that are normally hidden from view,” said Masatsugu Toyota, a plant physiologist at Saitama University in Japan. The best way to figure out how they work is to make them visible,