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Shameplant
- Lumiss
- Oct 24, 2019
- 3 min read
Hello and welcome to a new post!
Today I will be talking about the mimosa pudica (also known as shameplant).
This plant is to be a house plant which, when touched, it's leaves it will close. Once it does, it looks like it just died in a second. But after a few minutes it will open up again and look as good as new. Some say this is a defense mechanism and others say it does it so that when it rains the water goes directly to the earth instead of staying on the leaves.
How does it do it?
You'll be asking yourself. First of all I'll give you a proper scientific explanation and then explain it in a way that can be understood.
According to The Times of India, when touched, this sensitive leaf reacts to stimulus as there is a higher pressure at that point and the water in the vacuoles of the cells of the leaf lose water to the adjacent cell. If the leaves are left undisturbed for a few seconds, they slowly open up again and regain turgidity.
Basically what they are trying to say is that the leafs receive the sensation of someone or something touching them and all the water leaves from that leaf and, like you should know already, when a plant has no water it goes down and starts dying, but this plant has the ability to move the water back after a few seconds and revive the area that has been touched. Which I find quite remarkable, reason why these are my favorite plants and also why I have one in my room.
The care for these plants
When I got my plant, the first thing that I was told it that it would need a lot of water every day.
These plants are very sensitive so they need a lot of care. They should be kept at a temperature between 18.3 and 23.9 degrees Celsius (65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit).
These plants are known to spread a lot so it would be best if they were kept in a pot and also they would need to be kept indoors but somewhere they will get a lot of sunlight. Unless you live in a warm country, in which you could probably keep it outside, but in my case I need to keep in indoors.
These plants need to be watered every day, but you are not allowed to be lazy and keep them in water and keep refilling, like I was mostly doing at the start of having the plant. I had water beads mixed with water so it would always be moist. I started to notice the plant was losing it's sensitivity and I stopped doing this, now I water it everyday just enough water to keep it moist and happy.
A few things to look out for is that if the plant gets any bugs or anything, you cannot use any products to get rid of them as it will harm the plant, it has to be done with water. Also, these plants can not be ingested as they contain toxins that will cause harm.
When I got my plant it had mini slugs on it, the people I got it from obviously didn't take the best of care of their plants. And all I did was take them off and put them outside and I kept an eye out on the plant in case I saw more and I did. I found about 4 or 5 which was very disturbing. But it's been ages now and I have not seen any so I believe I got rid of them. I haven't had any encounters with any pests but I always check it just in case something starts to harm it in any way.
There's not much else to say about the plant. If there is anything else you'd like to know about them leave a question in the comments and I'll look into it and give you the best answer possible.
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