Most of us aren’t spending our days watching our houseplants grow. We see their signs of life only occasionally – a new leaf unfurled, a stem leaning toward the window. But in the summer of 1863, Charles Darwin lay ill in bed, with nothing to do but watch his plants so closely that he could detect their small movements to and fro. The tendrils from his cucumber plants swept in circles until they encountered a stick, which they proceeded to twine around. “I am getting very much amused by my tendrils,” he wrote. This amusement blossomed into a decadeslong fascination…
Author: Chantal Nguyen, Postdoctoral Associate at the BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado Boulder
