When we think about plants having intelligence in the western world, we tend to summon a picture of Victorian botanical horror or of Cleve Backster in the sixties, who used a polygraph machine in an attempt to prove that plants feel pain and have extrasensory perception. In short, we see it as fiction and tend to scoff at those who try to use science to prove otherwise. We’re caught in a catch-22 of our own making, denying the fact that in order to prove a claim true we must test it and yet when some brave soul comes forth to do just that, we laugh at them. Much like those who denied heliocentrism for the more comforting and anthropocentric view of geocentrism. We see scientists falling into wells and laugh at them blindly, even as they use science to prove us wrong. Jagadish Chandra Bose set out to be one such man… Jagadish Bose, it is said, first questioned the sensitivity of plants when he stepped on _Mimosa pudica_ and saw it’s response. _Mimosa pudica_, or _‘the sensitive plant’_ when touched quickly folds up it’s little leaves as if it’s afraid. The perfect plant then to ask questions about sentience, sensitivity, and what similarities exist between species. What followed was plant parenthood, scientific discovery, empathy, indigenous science, invention, and revelation. When I first sat down to read this book, I never expected to be floored by it’s contents. But there was more than one occasion where I sat there in quiet awe at what I just come across for the first time in my life. From the strange properties that light has in regards to surfaces to the realization of just how similar we are to all the species we think of as inherently different from ourselves. Jagadish Bose, pulled back the curtain on our ignorance and with glaring light showed us not only that plants feel, but that we both share a heartbeat, a nervous system, a sensitivity to poisons and cures, and most importantly of all, that we both experience death in tragically similar ways. With that, I leave you with the words of Jagadish Bose and a small request. Let us not laugh at the dreamers, the curious, the studious, but help each other towards further understanding… > ‘The plant life I have spoken of is an echo of our own lives. This life get wounded and faints and wakes up again from a momentary stupor. There are two sides to this impact; we exist at the intersection of these two. On one side lies the path of life; on the other, the path of death.’ - Jagadish Chandra Bose