What Can We Learn from Plants?

By C. Frazier Spencer

“ “For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works” (Psalm 139:14). Some general information about plant complexity may be of interest before we get into specifics.

A book titled, The Secret Life of Plants (1) has some remarkable information. “Worm like rootlets, which Darwin likened to a brain, burrow constantly downward with thin white threads, crowding themselves firmly into the soil, tasting it as they go. Small hollow chambers in which a ball of starch can rattle indicate to the roots the direction of the pull of gravity.”

“When the earth is dry, the roots turn toward moister ground, stretching, as in the case of the lowly alfalfa plant, as far as 40 feet, developing an energy that can bore through concrete. A study of a single rye plant indicates a total of over 13 million rootlets with a combined length of 380 miles. On these rootlets of a rye plant are fine root hairs estimated to number some 14 billion with a total length of 6,600 miles.”

Can plants see? The author informs us, “A climbing plant which needs a prop will creep toward the nearest support. Should this be shifted, the vine, within a few hours, will change its course into the new direction. Can the plant see the pole? Does it sense it in some unfathomed way? If a plant is growing between obstructions and cannot see a potential support it will unerringly grow toward a hidden support, avoiding the area where none exists…”

(this article is an excerpt from the September–October 2003 edition of the Sabbath Sentinel)

To read the rest of this article, which starts on page 11, click this link: https://biblesabbath.org/tss/504/tss_504.pdf