Unwinding the Cucumber Tendril Mystery

Plants may be stationary but they're rarely still, says biologist Roger Hangarter, creator of the website Plants in Motion. Researchers are using time-lapse photography to study the biomechanics of plant movement. For example, this week in the journal Science, physicist Sharon Gerbode, of Harvey Mudd College, and biologist Joshua Puzey, of Harvard University, explain how they used time-lapse, mathematical modelling and a prosthetic plant to understand how cucumber tendrils twist.

[geetugupta]

Wooahhh this is the best video on tendrils on the whole of YouTube and it's shocking that it's 10 yrs old....lol

[matthewbaxter]

Plants follow the sun so that's why they grow in circles.

[MrVankog]

In fact studies recently showed, that plants have kind of "intelligence". Meaning, they can plan to an expected future.
They do not just react on environmental factors. If this would be the case, a plant would grow always the same way like a machine, but they don't.
They grow in a way to best fit a possible future. e.g. they even recognize periods of getting water and grow in that matter, even if the water does not come once. They just expected it.

Plants even do have a kind of "nervous" system

[misskulli]

I've been looking everywhere for footage of tendrils moving visibly to the naked eye. When I was a kid I would watch my pumpkin tendrils moving and now I can't find anything that backs me up lol. Bout to just get a pumpkin plant and film I myself

[gabriel]

great video...well made and documented

[--Paws--]

Is this related to how cords in your pocket tangle

[blackie]

they're just continuously checking that they're in the sweet spot

[bitoverrate]

Cucumber tendrils really remind me of springs, or suspension from a car, it's almost like everything humans have invented already exists in nature.

[densdoor]

What I want to know takes it to the next step- When the cucumber throws its branch around to locate something to attach itself to, what if it finds another shoot of itself? Will it attach to itself or not and know it found a part of itself and say's Hey that's me- move on to find something else.

[SooziinCa]

I have very curly hair, perhaps this is why I am always frustrated with it!

[JeanAlesiagain]

They move circularly because their growth has the shape of a fibonacci spiral.

[Kantasan]

nie ma to jak kac, bolący łeb i zwijające się ogórki...