Annaka Harris

They can grow in a straight line slowly, or they can grow in this coil form more quickly.

And what happens is when they are growing in a straight manner and they encounter a branch or a pole or something else that it can wrap itself around to gain more stability,

when it senses a branch there, that gives it the cue to start growing at a more rapid pace and to start coiling instead of growing straight.

So it has these two behaviors.

As a system, it's capable of growing straight and it's capable of coiling.

One interesting thing, actually, I'll just add this.

It's not totally relevant.

But one interesting thing is Mark Jaffe's work.

So he cut a pea tendril.

He was curious to see if it could do this on its own separate from the rest of the plant.

So he cut a pea tendril off the plant.

If you keep it in a moist, warm environment, it will continue to behave in these ways.

So it will continue to coil.

He noticed that if he touched one end of it, if he rubbed one side of it, that gave it enough of a cue that it would start to coil.

And then he noticed that it needed light to perform this action.

So in the dark, when he rubbed the edge of the tendril, it did not coil.

In the light, it would.

And then he recognized this further fact, which was that the P tendril that he rubbed in the dark, that was still straight,

If he brought it out into the light, and this could be hours later, it would start to coil.

It has a primitive form of memory where it has the sensation and then it holds onto that information.