Secret of a Flower - What Might They Know?

1916

How Did the Trumpet Vine Discover the Bared Stump?

If someone advanced the theory that this plant had some unknown power of reasoning you would probably reply that "plants can't reason because they have no mind." You may change your opinion after you hear this story, related by Royal Dixon, who writes entertainingly about how near like human beings in their actions plants are.

The story is about a trumpet vine, the favorite of many an old fashioned garden. About twenty feet from where it grew was an old pine stump with the bark on. One day a fire was built about the foot of the stump, and the bark was burned off.

Immediately the trumpet vine sent forth a long trailer across the garden to the stump. It raised the tendrils, felt the smooth surface of the stump and started to climb. Before long the whole blackened surface was hidden beneath the leaves and blossoms of the new vine.

With the rough bark on the stump it provided no surface for the clinging tendrils of the vine. After the fire destroyed the bark the vine found a place to climb.

How did the plant know that the fire had prepared the stump? We don't know. Ask the flower! — Philadelphia North American.