So are bean plants curious little Indiana Jones’s cracking the wit of Harrison Ford like a whip?

Maybe.

Calvo, along with scientists at the Minimal Intelligence Lab at the University of Murcia, Spain, and the Rotman Institute of Philosophy in London, Canada, used timelapse photography to track the movements of 20 potted French bean plants growing towards garden cane 30 centimeters away. 

“They found that the shoots would grow along more predictable paths in the presence of the canes, almost as if they could sense them in their vicinity and adjust their growth patterns as a response,” the BBC reported.

The Rotman Institute of Philosophy’s Dr. Vicente Raja didn’t claim the study proved conscious plant intent, but it did show the beans did more than simply react to external stimuli. 

“It is one thing to react to a stimulus, such as light, it is another thing to perceive an object,” he says. “If the movement of plants is controlled and affected by objects in their vicinity, then we are talking about more complex behaviors, not reactions, and we should be able to identify similar cognitive signatures to those we observe in humans and some animals.”

Essentially, plants have game. Open our minds – we might just find plants have minds too.

“Only in the last decade is when we have been associating animals with sentience, answering these questions takes time. If we separate our biases away from thinking that some features only belong to us, then we can move the field forward much faster,” says Calvo, director of the Minimal Intelligence Lab at the University of Murcia and co-author of the study.

Are plants intelligent? To truly answer this question, you might ask yourself as you pass a fat spliff of smokable herbs to the left: “What is intelligence? What would it look like in a plant?” 

Hint: Probably a little different than the Big Bang Theory on the end of a bong.

“The ability to see plants as intelligent, or something approximate to intelligent, while respecting their otherness, their unique form of intelligence which is very likely incredibly different from our own, will take a certain level of tolerance for holding ambiguity and a comfort with the unknown,” says Zoë Schlanger, climate and science reporter, Atlantic staff writer, and author of the new book The Light Eaters, in a conversation with Atmos.

Scientists are conservative, she admits, but they’re starting to at least have the conversation. But at the moment at least, they’re playing it vague because they don’t want to be misinterpreted by conspiracy theorist nutjobs on X.

But the idea of conscious plants may very well have validity beyond your whacked-out cousin who confuses the bong for a mic stand.

“But their conservatism sometimes prevents the public from ever getting a taste for the true nature of what they’re finding,” Schlanger continues. “There’s a lack of willingness to use plain language to describe the incredible things that plants are doing. They use passive language a lot to talk about what plants do, even though the plants themselves are doing these very active things, and I think that robs us all of the ability to start synthesizing these complex ideas. 

“I’m hoping for a future, even in the next decade, where we’re more comfortable thinking about the idea of there being a mind within things that don’t have brains,” she adds.

There’s more to plants than we realize. Maybe smokable herbs could write their own poetry bong if we listen closely.

She adds: 

“One could look at a plant that is making decisions spontaneously or changing its body spontaneously to respond to its environment or strategically planning for the future, or protecting its kin, or having complex social lives—all of which plants have—as markers for conscious engagement with the world.”

So the real question remains: Do the herbs you smoke think you’re sexy? You’ll have to ask them. Show some skin, turn your flirt up to 11, and maybe, just maybe, you’re clam-baked closet can spend 7 minutes in heaven.

Because one thing is for sure: Conscious plants heighten our consciousness. Turn on, tune in – plant your mind in a plant. You just might grow.