PLANTS' INTELLIGENCE: A SKETCH FROM THE TEMPERATE AND TROPICAL REGIONS

PLANTS’ INTELLIGENCE: A SKETCH FROM THE TEMPERATE AND TROPICAL REGIONS

INTRODUCTION

Contributing in some debates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkIns, Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo is conceivably one sure way we could make our scientific contributions for the positive growth of our home on Earth. Apart from that we could inspire others. I was provoked on 07/01/2014 by the comments made in the Science Magazine 'Driving Diversity in the Tropics'. My rendition is wondering aloud why the plants in the temperate lands cannot be preponderant as those in the tropics where you do have literally thousands of different species of plants in a limited locale. We try to conjecture from experiences in both these prominent geographical regions of the world:

How is one hectare of tropical forest able to harbor more tree species than there are in Canada and the continental United States combined? Until now, researchers have struggled to explain why the tropics can achieve such biodiversity while temperate regions generally host far fewer plant species. But, the ongoing evolutionary “arms race” between plants and herbivores may help to explain this phenomenon, according to the authors of a Perspective article. Phyllis Coley and Thomas Kursar highlight recent research that suggests so many plant species are able to cram into small plots of land in the tropics because their defenses are so finely tuned by interactions with pests. Plants in temperate regions, on the other hand, are generally under less pressure from herbivores and disease, they say.

[Image: S. Crespi]

As sequels, the following comments were made extempore after reading the above, deemed fitting to be shared after having been on sabbatical that is apparently interminable:

THEORY

"This hypothesis could be defended by creating a micro-tropical climate in North America. For instance, a glass house that mimics tropical conditions with imported tropical plants, pests and diseases that could enable us to verify if topical plants with living organisms could thrive and replicate the phenomenon described in say Canada by Coley and Kursar. It should be borne in mind that owing to extreme temperatures in temperate milieus and lack of high humidity as in the tropics where soil layers are deeper, we may not have an ideal condition and our test could be awry. There are some creatures that comfortably live two to three meters in the ground and only venture to interact with plants at night. How can we create such a scenario in the Canadian or US wilderness where soil characteristics are different?  Having said this, we have seen some tropical plants flourishing under artificial tropical conditions at Kew Botanical Gardens, London, U.K. and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere. Then, those plants as those cultivated in glass houses in the temperate lands for summer sales are not lumped higgledy-piggledy as the ones that grow naturally in the tropics. This is an interesting topic where the researchers would have to think of evolution and other factors, determinism that may have influences in habitats we are inapt to enumerate here."

PRESENTATION

While pondering upon what I have read, what lingered over me all night long was if there was anything called ‘plants’ intelligence.’ When it is considered that plants have genes and are extant like cold and warm blooded creatures, do things like all living creatures, and exchange information in some sophisticated ways least revealed to most of us, I was harkened to grudgingly accept that they have intelligence. The quandaries were glaring. Then the question was how I was to go about it and report it succinctly. I needed technical facilities, funding and patience that were more than that of anglers. Then there was a glimmer of hope.  Serendipitously I came across the above oration and my thoughts were no longer like some thingamabobs in science fiction.

In it, the authors, Messrs. Coley and Kursar talk of plants evolving the way they are as their way of fighting against pests. I accepted their theory with a pinch of salt. That was a conjecture that may require scientific authentication. The question is how this could be proven. Having been born in the tropics, my observations indicate that the sparsely distribution of plants or fewer species in North America may be more than fighting against pests provided we allow plants to be our ‘professors or teachers.’ We observed that some species of plants taken from the temperate zones and planted in the tropics do not allow other species to grow near them. This is very true of pines. We are inept to state if this condition is due to some viruses or pathogenic or ecological.  Their canopies or roots or chemicals they exude or leaves, needles do not give room for other plants to grow next to them or by them. To me it is one way they guard their territories and ensure that food nutrients underneath them are not shared or that they are not deprived of such vital food supplies. Their needles form such complex mats that give no room for plants to grow beneath them besides helping in mulching under parched conditions in the dry seasons. Where the underneath growths succeed, they are killed for they are deprived of the radiance of the sun, a vital element in the manufacture of plant food by photosynthesis. I will not necessarily conclude that it is their way of fighting other plants to keep away pests or diseases as this condition is replicated in the temperate or torrid zones. Therefore it is not idiosyncratic. The summers of the temperate regions, in a way are tropical conditions being replicated in those geographic zones. The major difference is the extreme of temperatures, climatic conditions.

PROCREATION: The Crucial question is who were the prima occupantis of the Earth, man or plants?

We humans may be jejune when it comes to plants kingdoms in their local environments. If we were to say that plants communicate with animals, birds and insects in the tropics and even in temperate lands some people would like to know how we decipher such language or languages when we have not even mastered ours to communicate effectively with aliens in our midst. Nevertheless, one thing is certain that the beaks of certain birds and insects are fashioned in such a way as to be able to get pollen, nectar, seeds or parts of plants. This begs a question, namely, was it the plants that evolved the way they are to accommodate animals, birds and insects or was it the birds, animals and insects to accommodate plants. If tree A, started, how did it come to know that if it grew the way it was doing, other creatures would help her in the distribution of its seed, cross-pollination and so on?  The crucial question is who were the prima occupantis of the world, man or plants?

My supposition is that some plants were ahead and others evolve or were made concurrently with man/animals if it is borne in mind that man and other living creatures need air purified by plants for their survival. In this case, man could not have preceded plants. We will see below that certain plants can only grow in specific areas  in spite of having the same climatic and edaphic conditions as they know that it is only there that their seeds could be distributed or scattered for their proliferation. Once more this provokes another perplexing question, namely, how the plants got this cognizance or adaptation? Was it the plant that asked the animals how to shape their parts, flowers, or animals asking plants to shape their parts to facilitate the distribution of their seeds? We infer that it was the matter of genes fashioning both creatures to be the way they are else they were doomed. If by our inference, the plant was first to people the world, then other creatures coming after then had to adapt to their needs and not the other way round. However, when they lived together and established the need for one another, they all made evolutionary provision for one another. If evolution is still in progress, will it astonish us that we may have children in the future without legs since jalopies and other transport mechanisms we have invented have come to restrict the full use of our legs for the purposes they were meant?

DISTRIBUTION

Rodents and other living creatures take the seeds to their caverns and they easily germinate without which they could have fallen on parched soils where they would not have germinated or remain in the same ecosystem of the parent plant.  The plants facilitate this by providing ample seeds that are edible by animals, birds, insects, worms and man. We all see squirrels doing this frantically when winter is approaching so that they could go back there when there is nothing to forage in winter. Oftentimes they forget the location of their buried seeds and the outcome are new trees or plants growing in areas quite far from the original habitat of the mother plants. Other plants hike lifts on wind by deliberately making their seeds so light that they are buoyant in the air and water or sticky as to adhere on any moving object. Thus they are able to navigate long distances and their procreation and posterity are ensured. Others self-propelled their seeds as castor oil seeds, assorted beans and various species of tephrosia. Some simply stand on one spot year in year out and send their roots to gather food for themselves. You will see that the roots’ heads as so fragile yet through some not well-studied process they are able to penetrate deeply hard soils and even rocks.  To our untutored eyes this is magic of these geniuses, plants.  To many of us, we would expect the harder roots to penetrate the soils and not the soft parts. This is where we are toddlers and plants had taken giant leaps before us.  Others like bananas and plantain trees bifurcate by producing young ones as suckers.  They produce fruits required by animals and men who have learned to carry suckers for transplanting in other environments. Bananas and many edible or economic plants were not natives of West Africa or other parts of the world but were brought thereby the Portuguese seafarer in the early days of seafaring from the Americas in the 15^th century. Others crossed continents by floating on water. Birds and animals took some to long distances.

SYMBIOSIS AND HOW WE SURVIVE THE ODDS: Who first people the Earth, man or plants?

Besides, plants are able to get what we consider as bad air to make their own foods, photosynthesis and give us back clean air. The clean air keeps us and animals around and the plants make good use of carbon dioxide in propagating their kinds. Now on what podium can we stand on to state that the plants are not kind to us and are perhaps more intelligent than us? We cannot live without plants and plants cannot live without us, biological elements. This is the symbiosis that many politicians tend to forget when tabling some of their environmental policies. Consequently the interaction of animals, birds, insects and plants for their survival is not a mistake in nature but a well-planned stratagem by the Maker, God or what others like to call Mother Nature.

Methinks at the dawn of creation, there was a meeting and plant dominated when it submitted its bill for debate. They took the leading role and planned that interdependence. If we rely upon plants to purify air for us, then it is imponderable that God could have created man without plants and fertile soils first. We shall ever be like that and the day we will want our independence from plants is the day we all will sign our death warrant. Often we question if we have used our heads when annihilating vast reserves of trees in the Amazon, the Ituri forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Corrup in West African and many more in Indonesia and Malaysia. The cow eats the grass, passes on the excrement that fertilizes the plant and others and even gives us faggot. We use the plants to prepare our meals and our meals are meat that had fed on the plants. When we die we decompose and the plants use us to keep the cycle going ad infinitum. This cycle is best summarized by this lyric appended by the lyricist Peter Seeger, ‘Where have all the flowers gone’.

HOW PLANTS COUNTERACT THEIR ANNIHILATION BY MAN

Before we kill one tree, it had already bifurcated in places like the tropics. Plants had already foreseen what was to happen when man was not yet there and got prepared for man in a very sophisticated way that it will take us so long to know. The plants have not foreseen our inventions such as the power saws, use of chemicals and many more that destroy their kinds, yet they fight relentlessly to survive.

Figure 1 infra is a picture of wild palm trees in the tropics. Underneath thousands of species of plants and other living creatures that share a single habitat. The sad news is that some mischievous multinational pharmaceutical firms connive with dictatorial regimes in Africa, South America and S.E. Asia to cut unique plants for the manufacture of drugs, logging and are not replanted. This was the case of Kilung- Ngongbaa Forest in the Grassfields of Cameroon, the Former British Cameroons, in the Amazon forest and others in S.E.Asia. We computed from the height and rings of some of these plants that some were 600 years old or older. There are trees that have survived for up to 5000 years and are still alive and kicking. Apparently, the world is their home and we are in transit. Living in symbiosis are numerous living creatures many of which have never been scientifically analyzed and are unique to those habitats. In some ecosystems a good number of them are medicinal and are known by the locals. Nearly all plants have medicinal purposes, although some are lethal where not handled with caution or mixed with other chemicals. It leads us to herbalists in some regions carrying our incantations before plants are harvested for medical preparation. Marijuana that can now be purchased in some parts of US was a guarded secret in some so-called primitive communities. It was never allowed to be divulged to the rank and file so that there was never any substance abuse to the extent we have now in some Western communities. However, there are other serious plants more important than marijuana that is loved by man, insects and animals that could cure most of our diseases than we could envisage. There is urgent need to identify study and document their medicinal properties and other economic values.

Although the present regimes are aware of the predicaments, destruction, more needs to be done to protect these plants and animals. In the past forests were teaming with fauna and the people can only read this now in their fables and natural history books. Perhaps it should be the obligation of FAO, WHO, UNESCO or fervent NGOs to fight for their preservation.

THE PALM TREE

Initially, we thought that the palms were planted by peoples in the armpit of Western Africa in the area of Wedikum and that they belonged to some person or persons. They were wild and belonged to no one. They were planted by birds, running water, animals wind and occasionally by man that had been exploiting them since time immemorial for his assorted foods and other economic values. The palm tree is the king of giant grasses and all parts of it are used by man and other living creatures. Treaties have been written on this king of grass, the palm tree in the tropics and we need not reiterate here.

Wild palm forest in the tropical forest, Widikum, 'Armpit of Africa,' Western Africa

Lush vegetation in the transitional zone of the forest and grass land in the tropic.

An idyllic close up secondary rain forest; the variety of vegetation in this ecosystem is phenomenal

Tropical rain-forest. Note climbers that will remind us of Tarzan films and assorted parasites.

Savannah landscape in the tropics.  Note the rain clouds

World map showing the original home of man  L, in central Africa and his emigration routes

Forested landscape in the Canadian Shield. Note the coloring of trees in preparation for the Fall, and Winter.

A bird eye view of landscape in France. Note patches of forested areas in deep green and well planned and cultivated fields.

Colby Fire in California after NASA Jan., 16, 2014. Note the amount of smoke. This incident is just the tip of the iceberg should fireproofed homes not be built and strong measures taken to cut manageable fire paths each year. 

The nature of  forest in temperate land in the Northern Hemisphere.  The undergrowth is virtually suppressed by snow and life is at a standstill.  Ottawa suburb, Canada Jan. 19, 2014

Note the appearance of this tree on the verge of the fall and  in winter below.

The  very tree above in summer

The same tree in winter. Note that it has shed its leaves, a survival strategy.

The second picture above is that of the Cameroon highlands in the tropics. Although the rainfall here is not as intensive and torrential as in the region some three hundred kilometers to the south-west of the location of the first picture, there is evidence of abundant luxurious verdure. Real tropical conditions prevailing in the valleys and this leads to what we call forest galleries. The higher lands are clad with tall grass and assorted trees and shrubs. The assumption is that this was once clad with forests but were destroyed by man's wanton destruction for fuel, grazing and hunting. Today forests are barely seen except for isolated thickets mentioned above or those due to recent afforestation.  Where there had not been overgrazing you tend to have a rich mixture of primeval plants as on Mount Kilun-Ngongbaa in Oku, Bui region we earlier saw. Owing to the presence of creeks and water sources in the valleys, the growth of plants is luxurious and is often spared from seasonal bush fires that consume plants in the Savannah during the dry season. The dry season looks like summer in the northern hemisphere but it is unlike winter in the temperate lands from the extreme cold temperatures at dawn and dusk.

The third picture above is our panoramic view of landscape in France the author shot from an airplane window. From this oblique view we can discern some patches of untouched forests. On the whole, the highly cultivated terrain is orderly and well kept. This is possible as the plants here do not grow at an amazing rapidity as the case of the tropics where growing conditions are propitious throughout the year. As such, plants do have ample space to grow and you may tend to have patches of original forests. Most of the trees are homogeneous unlike those in the tropics as will be seen below.

The trees or plants in the temperate zones must adapt to the climatic conditions or they die. In what is known as the fall, the plants shed all their leaves to prepare themselves for the harsh winter conditions. It is not only plants that prepare for winter. Most living creatures do if not they could be history and would not live to see the next summer. Some animals as bears and snakes hibernate. Others simply migrate to warmer climes. Where the trees shed their leaves, they reduce the space of their bodies that are exposes to extreme weather conditions as the very cold weather at the time of writing (Friday, January-17-14) in the Northern Hemisphere. If it comes to preservation, plants in their right habitat are better equipped than we human beings who are running helter-skelter today at the sight of the Arctic vortex touching down on us (Jan. 2014).

It does not mean that there are no trees in the tropics that do not shed their leaves. There are some isolated ones that shed their leaves thereby regulating their growth and the loss of moisture, evapotranspiration.

The very tree we saw above in spring is shown in the winter (2014). If this tree were to retain its leaves in winter, the weight of snow would have broken its leaves and branches or pull down the entire tree. Many of us do not know the stress plants have once their roots or branches are severed. The absence of leaves means air can pass through with ease and it would not be pulled down in case of ice storm. 

The tree above covered with ice and snow. It had prepared for eventualities by shading its leaves at the fall and can comfortably pass through winter without dying completely. This is also true of maple standing on its right. A visitor from the tropic on seeing these trees in winter without leaves are assumed then to be faggot for fire. In spring this will produce buds and shoot to life and blossom.

This is a typical example of secondary growth in the tropical or under tropical conditions. This picture was taken in the highlands of the Cameroon, Grassfields where the land that was once cultivated was fallowed. The length is fifty meters and you may try to count the number of plants that are ever green in this picture. There are climbers that buttress themselves on bigger trees with robust buttressed roots. A good number were identified as edible and medicinal. The climbers are wild yams. They are relying on the cola-nut trees (Sterculiaceae) and others to ascend higher in their clamber for the radiance of the sun.  In the fore left you have ferns. The longer leaves to the fore left are sisongos or elephant grass, (Pennisetum purpureum). These are edible as the fern that you have as salad in some Chinese restaurants. Immediately after the ferns on the left you have dracaenas that are commonly used for boundary demarcation throughout West Africa. The trees with long wide leaves are banana trees. On the extreme left, you have Arabica coffee shrubs. There are a mixture of domesticated and wild plants that grow automatically without tendering.

This is a secondary forest in Ontario Province, Canada, North America in autumn. The leaves have started getting red or yellowing. There are some pines to the far left of the picture. These are single-leaf plants that do not shade their leaves as they have special oil in them that make them to withstand harsh winter conditions. Surprisingly, the pines do grow in mountainous regions of the tropics. As aforementioned, they have been made to shed copious leaves to cover their underneath so that no plants or relatively very few grow under them. In that case, they survive in tropical Asia, Africa and Americas as if they were in the temperate lands, their native homes. That is a characteristic that the authors of the above statement needed to have looked into. We have hawthorns, maples and other varieties. You can see that there is abundantly rich variety but is nothing compared to what you will have in the tropics as per fifty or one hundred meter squares of thicket we will see below in the tropics. This is a secondary forest. It means that the primeval forest had been logged and the area cleared and this growth is now replacing the original forest.

In winter, the undergrowth is bare and one can have good visibility under the trees. No doubt it is ideal condition for hunting. This is because the trees have shed their leaves in preparation for winters that are extremely cold. The cold weather makes them to adapt to the conditions and to be readied in case there is snow storm that tend to pull healthy trees down.  As earlier stated if their leaves are left on their branches, it would mean that they would carry excess load. Being conditioned by evolution, they take precaution by shedding all those leaves before the adverse seasonal conditions. These have been going on since time immemorial. With no immediate threats as they would have from climbers in the tropics, they can afford to grow naturally in staggered positions and do not have hard trunks or hard wood as those in the tropics. If they were to carry climbers and their leaves year in year out, and to face tornadoes, they would have developed buttress roots and sturdier trunks as tropical trees. They had adapted to the environment.

It does not mean that there are no sprinklings of hard woods in the temperate zones.  We do have occasional hardwoods as oaks known as the king of the wood in the temperate lands. With this our simple observations we are inclined to conclude that a good number of plants are cleverer than we humans. Does it mean that man has to mimic plants in order to survive? How long did it take man to live in well-built homes, wear better clothes and to be prepared for winters that are ever sure to come each year? How long has it taken man to discover medicines and chemicals that may cure him that is naturally found in plants? We take our modern homes for granted but their edification was not an overnight venture.

REASONS FOR MORE PLANTS PER ONE SQUARE MILE IN THE TROPICS THAN ALL OF NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT

We have identified three cardinal causes of this discrepancy: The climate under which we have copious supply of rainfall or availability of moisture; the average annual temperature and sunshine recorded and last and not the least the type of soils. If we have to consider faunas, we look at them as providers of carbon dioxide, transporters of seed and elements of cross-pollination and as providers of manure needed by plants.

1.     The question then is posed as why the tropical soils are deep and those in the North America as those of the Canadian Shield skeletal? We know that with thin layers of soils we are likely to have a smaller population of plants in one locale particularly where tropical conditions do not prevail.  We learn above that there is copious supply of rainwater in the tropics. This helps in the formation of various types of deep soils. However, before bigger rocks are broken into bits, they are first of all fractured. The outcome of this is what we call residuum. 

2.     Another aspect is that tropical soils easily loss their food nutrients whereas those in the temperate lands retain theirs for long. One may attribute this to fast leaching in the tropics owing to heavy rainfalls. Plants might have conditioned themselves to scramble for less food supply in consequence and that may account for their growth at an amazing rapidity unlike those in the temperate zones. Under this condition more plants may be crammed together to fight for limited nutrients in a limited space.

3.     Besides, the temperatures are constantly high. These are ideal conditions for the fast decomposition of dead vegetative materials, and chemical erosion that are responsible for further breaking down of rocks. The smaller fractures are further broken down and are lighter to be carried down slopes by various natural agents. This will depend on the sort of slope. The slope can be gentle, moderate, steep, and or very steep. The terrain will also help in the gravitational, creature, eolian, water, chemical, and vegetation transfer of those fractures down the slope to lower levels.  When they descend down to the area where the slope meets level land, they are deposited. These lead to the formation of what we call colluvium. Down here, they are easily mixed with moisture and soil fertility is improved, thus luxurious vegetation. 

4.     Also, the warm conditions make it possible for creatures that inhabit the areas to be active all year round. Consequently, they have more than enough time to break rocks or vegetable materials than in say North America. If these creatures were to be in the northern hemisphere, their activities in the course of gathering or foraging for food and digging tunnels are reduced during very cold seasons. Man is similarly restricted from working as hard, particularly outdoors in winters as he would during warmer climatic periods particularly alfresco. If we were to compute the active days of animals in both the north and southern hemispheres, it would be seen that those in the tropic or sub-tropical climates work all year round. If it concerned, soil formation, more would be formed in those warm climatic zones than in the temperate or torrid zones where there are extremes of temperatures. It does not surprise us that Northern Canada, Greenland, Northern Russ and Iceland are often considered by physical geologists as deserts. As seen above, in winter most living creatures hibernate and only emerge from their hibernation in spring. The further one goes to the north the longer one has the hibernation period and the less creatures have in breaking rocks or interacting with meager plants. You can compute the effect of this for thousands of years. This will account too for the sparse distribution of trees or limited number of species.

5.     Having made these observations differences in temperatures do lead to the breaking of pieces of rocks, the contraction and expansion of rock into what we call alluvium. Alluvium could be recent or very old. Pieces of rock pulverization are essentially accelerated when there is moisture and heat combined. Again in the colder zones, this activity is curtailed owing to the short period of hot weathers. It does not mean that breaking of rocks does not take place under cold conditions. When we look at taluses after the withdrawal of glaciers we find fractured rocks. The rate of breaking is minimized vis-à-vis conditions in the evergreen tropical conditions.

6.     The saying that where there is water there is life is true in this our case. You will find more living creatures in the tropics than in the desert regions of the world. The torrid and some temperate zones of the world are deserts. Even when there are living creatures in desert areas they congregate their habitats near watering holes or sources of water. Water is essential for their survival. Does it puzzle us that the first man and woman were created in the riverine areas of the world? When we look at the world we find this to be in Central Africa. God who made man in His image could not have made him and left him in less fertile areas where he would have perished. Even if He had done this, He gave man brains to think that it was not the ideal area to inhabit and he migrated to fertile and hospitable climes. Water and fertility of the soil will tell us that he would have made them in the tropics. Archaeologists and other field scientists have proven this to be true. 

‘L’ on our map stands for the original home of man in the riverine area of central southern Africa.

7.     We may think too of the time it takes for the soil to be formed. We have seen that in terms of activities of living creatures in the tropics and tropical water couple with heat will lead to the formation of more soils in the tropics than in the temperate or torrid zones. Even where we have thick layers of soils in the temperate, it should be borne in mind that the world had not in the past been as it is now. There was a time when the temperate zones were in the tropics and that led to the formation of deep or thick layers of soils. Some of these were re-hardened owing to metamorphism. It is for this reason that we have coal and vast amount of oil in some desert, under seas and temperate zones regions of the world today. Occasionally, we stumble upon fossilized tropical trees in the temperate zones and vice versa. Not only that, we fine oil and coal and some of their parents are tropical vegetative materials. We saw that with time the bigger fractures of rocks are pulverized. They form what we called alluvium. Alluvium got dried with changes in climate and was blown or taken away and deposited miles away by water, and wind as is still the case today. The hazy conditions in the dry season are evidence of Eolian erosion from the Sahara. These formed layers of soils that mark their different periods of formation. With metamorphism the alluvium that were in layers were hardened and are presently being broken down by the eroding factors we adumbrated above. We should then know that nothing is the world can be missing as what goes down will eventually come up. As the mountains are being broken down to form soils, they are being carried away by the factors we saw above to build other mountains. If one were to state that lifeless planets in our solar system will one day hold life some of us will state that it is fiction. There was a time when no living thing roamed our world.

STILL ON SOIL FORMATION

Some dust or particles of rocks were carried away and deposited in their pristine form. We saw that metamorphism occurred they formed massive rocks that eventually are broken down through a combination of eroding processes. This may be the case of separate layers that form the Canadian Shield or marbles and lime stones as we have in Italy, Australia and other parts of the world. The whole process repeats itself as the world is not sedentary. When you destroy here, it is built over there. Nothing is wasted in the world but it may be transformed.  We have got earthquakes, continental movements, landslides, erosion by water, chemical, wind, gravity, man, animals, birds warms and plants that contribute in this process of breaking down and rebuilding of geological or geographical features.

FUTHER CHARACTERISTICS

However, today we are interested in conditions that lead to the differences in the characteristics of plants' growth in the tropic and the temperate zones and if we could learn any lesson from plants. The climates, edaphic factors, humidity, other elements that share spaces with plants are responsible for the peopling of the rain-forest or ecosystem in Canada. Evolution has made it in such a way that plants like we humans and other living creatures have to fight for space. It is a matter of survival of the fittest as underlined by Charles Darwin. You can decide to be on your own and die or cooperate and live. This is the epigram in the plant and some animal kingdoms. In the case of plants where land or space is already occupied, they have to accept to share the limited space. When climate is harsh they have to adapt or die and many have chosen the later and may be studied as fossils or dodoes in the future. Aggressive action may be necessary for survival. How?

PLANTS’ INTELLIGENCE

One of the strategies is to reproduce profusely as conditions are propitious. The plants in the tropic are obliged to produce more seeds for procreation that are sometimes essential. We saw that some of the plant seeds are distributed by air, animals, water, and man and by themselves. Clever plants have evolved such strategies that will ensure that their seeds are widely distributed. I know of beggars' lies that anchor on men, animals and birds and their seeds are taken thousands of miles away before they are dropped. When beggars' lies are growing, they give little room to other plants. Malicious farmers have used this in the past to drive away their neighboring farmers they did not like. The nearest plant we can compare its action with is the dandelion that is dreaded by most farmers and property owners in North America. Coconuts for example have learned to produce porous shells that are buoyant upon being thrown into the rivers. The moment they fall, they are taken by running water to great length before they touch the ground to grow. Some on the coastlines have been known to be transported by currents and waves for thousands of miles. The question we would like to ask is how did the coconut know that by encasing its seeds the way it did in fibrous shells, it was to be buoyant and make it transportable to other territories?

Some plans literally sleep as their way of preserving their energy when darkness envelope them.  They close their leaves as mimosa pudica (bannin) when grass munching animals are in their vicinity. Some close their stomata. Others as the sun flowers follow the sun from dawn to dusk as their way of getting plenty of energy from the sun. Others use sunlight to generate electricity. How long did it take man to discover electricity? This had been with plants since time immemorial. Others have been known to kill bigger animals and this is still being a puzzle to scientists by exuding poisonous gazes when being over eaten by animals. Some plants kill and eat insects and even smaller animals. We call them carnivorous plants. Some have learned to withstand blazing fires and fake death when the heat is unbearable. They spring to life with the first drop of rain. Others move with hubbub or noise, call it music. If they dance, where are their ears? Others plants may use chemicals to repulse others plants or animals from coming nearer them, some do this by having poison in their system. There are some tropical plants’ seed that if pulverized, they could be better repellents and nuzzling substances than the spry guns police use to subdue recalcitrant culprits. Some may produce a sort of bad air that may warn other plants or animals from trespassing. Most of us know the consequences of playing with stinging nettles, and poison ivies. They are defensive mechanism of plants without which some could have been annihilated.  

Don’t you think we have to stoop and learn from plants? As an example, how did the palm tree know that by getting ripe its seeds would be taken away from its immediate vicinity and dropped far away from the mother tree? We have got birds and insects that work in tandem with plants in the transportation of their seeds, pollen and help in cross pollination. When we look at all these unique characteristics we do fine out that those plants are most probably more intelligent than we humans. Are they? We think that we are more sophisticated than plants and contrariwise they think that we are nincompoops. With the Dunning and Guiker effect controlling us like marionettes, we tend not to accept. Plants give us pure air, oxygen without which we are not extant, yet we destroy them at such frightening rate as if we will manufacture enough oxygen to sustain us after plants.

When we consider that since the creation of USA, Canada, Malaysia, the Philippines, Madagascar, and others, there had been tornadoes that come and wipe away homes, take away many lives as we have year in year out, yet we have never found vital solutions are these not proofs that plants are superior to us. In pant kingdoms, they had long adapted to hazardous and  unforeseen contingencies. Some cannot be burnt or destroyed or carried away by wind or water. If those happen they are simply distributed to colonize their new environments. What of fire that devastated one of the wealthiest states in the world, California every year? Reporters trumpet it around the world as if the more we know of it the better it would help the victimized or halt the tragedy. Many homes were torched last year (2013) and many will this year (2014), next year and every year this will be so and at the time of going to the press (see the picture below). There is no end in sight since we have stubbornly become ridiculous or turn to swim in our bigotry.  

CONFORM OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES: FIRE PROOFED HOMES AS PANACEA?

Man often copies what is not inherently of his region and brings to others and it does not conform. Yet he stoically forces square pegs in a round holes. California needs a new fire proofed home, and perhaps water hydrants that will turn themselves automatically on the mere smell of smoke a mile away then that it denizens are lackadaisical to cut fire paths that are even known and done by Africans, Asians and South Americans in springs in anticipation of eventualities. On Thursday, January-16-14 the Los Angeles was crying that homes of their fellow citizens has been set ablaze by three miscreants camping. It is not the last time fire will be burning homes in California. It will happen again in 2015 around this time. Mark our words.  Incendiary in that country is sure as death. It was the same last year with hefty men losing their lives while fighting the flames. The devil of the fires has no sympathy for man as man does not sympathize with him.   Plants could have been evergreen to reduce their being killed by fire caused by man, lightning or volcanic fires or other sources. If we believe that plants are intelligent, they could deliberately have shallow roots so as to catch fire to drive away encroaching men and other creatures from their habitats.

Now the cycle continues as in our song. If one were to suggest today that houses should be built subterranean in dust bowls of America where tornadoes come each year and kill many innocent people, many would complain that it would be so expensive and extraordinary. Animals experimented and found this to be the best and have survived all odds we humans cannot fathom. You can only shoot rock hydras but you cannot run and catch them with our beagles as rabbits. Why? They easily disappear under rocks inaccessible by their chasers. Can it not be mandatory for fireproofed homes to be built in areas constantly visited by fires? In Switzerland, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Italy, Morocco and France where such homes are common, construction must meet certain standards and construction that take weeks to be accomplished in North America take several months before they are inhabitable. It is not the money that constructors want that should count but the safety of the inhabitants must come first.  What is the rush for by the modern property builders? To run away from persecution by barbarous Islamic believers in the past, the Abyssinian Christians (Ethiopians) built or carved out monstrous dwellings and places of worship below ground level or on rocky cliffs and they have stood the test of time. Where there are no earthquakes, cave dwellings are perhaps better than living in the tower of profligate babbles many are fervently building when others are living alfresco for lack of modest homes. Is this not rapacious?

Furthermore, plants manufacture their own foods by simply converting the soils and carbon dioxide. We too can convert soil directly into food without the humdrum of stealing from plants, insects and animals. How long have we been living with plants? They know us more than we know them and we do not know them because we are self-important. Are we?

CONCLUSION

Plants protect themselves when sick and know the enemies that will attack them even before they are attacked. Can we deny it that some of the sicknesses we have compounders have concocted and brought to plants were never known by them or experienced in the past? In the past there were no fungi attacking citrus fruits and panama attacking bananas in the tropics? Where have they suddenly come from in the 1970s? Coffee production that is the lifeline of some tropical countries is being abandoned for the farmers cannot cope with the rate of diseases spread. Where are they from when they were never there? Have tropical crops suddenly lost their vim to fight for survival?

However, plants produce their own cures and we have benefited from some of them without a word of benediction to them. Yet some of us are never sympathetic with plants and the creatures they have learned to live with in harmonium. Is there anything we could learn from the plants and animals? Let us look at inventions; some that we capitalize on came from animals and plants. Often we ignore them at our peril when they have our panacea for most of our needs.  We better run to them and listen to them fast than to be sorry and cry as we do every minute, hour, day, month and year after year. 

Viban Viban Ngo, Ph.D.  vibanngo@yahoo.com

* WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long-time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long-time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men, every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long-time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the young men gone?
They are all in uniform
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long-time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long-time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Cowered with flowers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Ooh ooh, ooh ooh, ooh
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Songwriter
PETER SEEGER

PS: My readers are encouraged to write to me their views concerning this draft without fear or favors.