Proof that plants dance when you’re not looking

Nick Saik at KNOW IDEAS MEDIA films plants growing for fun. While he realizes that’s a scathing indictment of how he spends his free time, it also gives him the opportunity to see just how much plants move when you look at them long enough. And, guess what. He thinks that’s pretty cool!

One thing he didn’t have enough time to explain is how a plant is actually moving. It’s cool they move, it’s cool we can film it, it’s cool we know why they are moving around … but how do they do it?

Auxins. Auxins are a kind of plant hormone that is key to all of this movement. Auxins can be translocated (moved around) across the plant’s stem and roots and the rest of it’s tissue. Auxins cause the plant cells to grow, so the plant can control it’s direction based on where in it’s tissue it’s putting the Auxin.