The debate over whether plants have feelings is about to reopen, thanks to scientific research in Italy and Germany. Findings suggest that plants under threat can use a devilish measure of cunning. They not only communicate the danger to plants nearby, they also call in help from other creatures.

    Research proved that plants sense--and react to--the presence of hungry, leaf-eating worms. Their response, as studied, was to emit an odour.
This alerted other plants to the presence of a predator. But it also served to call in what modern military planners would term air support. Wasps, the natural enemies of worms, were drawn by the odour to the plant where they either devoured the worm or injected it with eggs that later killed it.

    The study raised the interesting question: at the start of the process described, did the plants actually experience something that could be termed fear? A debate over this began in 1966 when a lie detector expert, Cleve Backster, connected a plant to a polygraph (lie detector). He said the machine registered changes as soon as he began to think about burning the plant’s leaves.

    意大利和德国的科学研究又引发了对植物是否有感情的讨论。研究结果表明，受到威胁的植物会采取极巧妙的办法，不但能把危险传达给附近的植物，而且还能请求别的生物给予帮助。

    研究表明植物能感觉到饥饿的食叶虫的出现，也能够对此做出反应。研究发现，它们的反应是发出一种气味。这种气味使别的植物警觉起来，意识到敌人来了。可是，这也起到了请求给予现代军事学家所说的“空中支援”的作用。毛虫的天敌黄蜂被这种气味吸引到植物上来，它们或者把毛虫吃下或者把卵产入毛虫体内，事后将其致死。

    研究也提出了有趣的问题：在所描述的过程开始时，植物真的体验到了可以称作“害怕”的感觉吗？这个说法的争论始于1966年，当时一个名叫克利夫-巴克斯特的测谎学家把一种植物同一台多种波动描记器（测谎器）连接，他说他一考虑把植物的叶子烧了，测谎器就记录到了变化。