Inside the world's only plant-intelligence lab

Professor stefano Mancuso knows it isn't easy being green: He runs the world's only laboratory dedicated to plant intelligence. At the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV), about seven miles outside Florence, Italy, Mancuso and his team of nine work to debunk the myth that plants are low-life. Research at the modern building combines physiology, ecology and molecular biology. "If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants have a lot to teach us," says Mancuso, dressed in harmonizing shades of his favorite color: green. "Not only are they 'smart' in how they grow, adapt and thrive, they do it without neuroses. Intelligence isn't only about having a brain." Plants have never been given their due in the order of things; they've usually been dismissed as mere vegetables. But there's a growing body of research showing that plants have a lot to contribute in fields as disparate as robotics and telecommunications. For instance, current projects at the LINV include a plant-inspired robot in development for the European Space Agency. The "plantoid" might be used to explore the Martian soil by dropping mechanical "pods" capable of communicating with a central "stem," which would send data back to Earth. The idea that plants are more than hanging decor at the dentist's office is not new. Charles Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants -- on phototropism and vine behavior -- in 1880, but the concept of plant intelligence has been slow to creep into the general consciousness.

At the root of the problem: assuming that plants have, or should have, human-like feelings in order to be considered intelligent life forms, Mancuso says. Professor Mancuso blends in with the greenery. He touches a formerly neglected office plant. Photo: Nicole Martinelli After the folksy 1970s hit book and stop-motion film The Secret Life of Plants, which maintained, sans serious research, that greenery had feelings and emotions, the scientific community has avoided talking about smarty plants.