Do slime molds actually make "decisions," or is it a set of tropisms?

How much credence do your guests give to the book "The Secret Lives of Plants", written many years ago? Can plants become attached to caregivers? Sense pain?

Amanita muscaria, a mushroom known as the 'fly agaric', lives in association with tree roots as the guest was explaining. The interesting thing about it is that it is both poisonous and psychoactive. The psychoactive compound is excreted in urine at higher concentrations than are found in the mushroom while the poisonous compounds are not. Many cultures are known to drink the urine of people who have consumed the mushroom in order to feel an 'altered state of reality'. My students are always grossed out by this...

Slime molds make decisions? That would explain my old boss. And HE could barely decide what he wanted for breakfast, let alone anything else.

the olive trees in the SW are banned because they are invasives, not because of poision. I am a biologist andlived in the SW for 10 years

no question, just a story from yrs. ago when Noah Adams was interviewing a man who grew some Japanese mushrooms that sold for $10,000 a pound ; very dry interviewee, serious and at the end , Noah Adams couldn't resist saying, "Mr. Smith, you are sure some fungi "; went right over Mr. Smith's head ; made no comment.

A giant fungus somewhere in the US is now considered to be the largest organism--bigger than the cloned aspen trees.

I'd like to hear more about underground communication between plants. Are we talking about mycorrhizae?

Also, if you've seen Avatar, there was a system of communication between living things by hooking into a fiber optic-like network... I'm not sure if the public realizes that this is not such a made-up concept, as mycorrhizal associations are known to facilitate belowground interactions between plants.

Lenny is surprisingly knowledgeable about psychoactive plant material. Dude!

One of Michael Pollan's books, "Botany of Desire" addresses some of these interesting plant issues.

Extra credit reading!

In the '70s, the pop-science bestseller THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS captured the New Age imagination with the argument that plants are sentient or at least displayed intentionality, after a fashion. Is the book taken seriously these days, among botanists? What are the guests' thoughts on the soundness of the science, in retrospect?

what about pot coke and cat nip

why would plants make THC for us to smoke? what do they get out of it?

Once, while working at a nursery in NYC, I spent quite a long time listening to a utility worker working on the street explain to me how venus fly traps came from outer space because they are native to an area surrounding an asteroid crater in North Carolina. I know a lot about plants and have never bothered to look this up but is this something you've heard?