Do plants and trees sleep? Yes, they do, according to the experts. Large varieties of them droop and close their leaves at sunset to take a night’s rest. Some years ago, I once returned home hungry around 7 pm and wanted to fix a simple supper with rice kanji and some green leaves as usual. I thought of cooking the medicinal Thazhuthama (Red Spiderlings, Boerhavea) that grows abundantly just outside my kitchen. Turning the backyard light on I went out and, to my surprise, found the creeper’s delicate branches all shut down with folded leaves as if they are in prayer. It naturally occurred to me that the plant was profoundly asleep! Imagination soared wild in my tired mind. If the plant is sleeping would it probably be dreaming too? If so what kind of dream would a humble plant have?
Looking beyond the boundary wall I saw the mighty rain tree (Samanea) in my neighbor’s compound in the same condition. Tens of thousands of its leaves are all closed down as if in a state of deep meditation in the moonlit night. It flashed across my mind that in between the tiny Thazhuthama and the sprawling rain tree all vegetation is sleeping. They might be recollecting and retracing in deep silence the story of their species back to millions of years. Has anyone got the right to disturb their contemplation? Awed by the sight and silence I simply refrained from picking any leaf, and returned to my rice soup and ready stock of pickles. Ever since that moving experience I stopped picking vegetables for cooking after sunset. Much later I learned from a wise elderly friend that there is a traditional ban on picking legumes at night for understandable reasons.
Plants follow the circadian rhythm of night and day. What the botanists call nyctinastic movement (from Greek nyx=night) is an amazing phenomenon that tells us a lot about the extreme sensitivity of all vegetation to light. Their metabolism changes depending on the bright and dark environment. We human beings seem to be the least sensitive to the environment. We recognize it in some minor degree only when a major catastrophe strikes us, like the present climate change and the global outbreak of a deadly virus.
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