I did it!! The telegraph plants (Codariocalyx motorius, around 3-4 weeks from sowing) are old enough to where they’re showing visible movement in the lower segments of their leaves! These are also (albeit toxic/inedible) tropical legumes so I like to call them dancing beans. :P
These plants demonstrate relatively rapid movement. If you look very closely– it’s difficult to see in real time– you can see the leaflets perform a continuous rowing or scanning motion. It’s not known why the plants evolved to do this but it’s neat from a scientific novelty perspective! Supposedly it responds to music and other sound but the jury’s out on that and I’d have to experiment myself.
The first video uses my phone’s time-lapse feature to make the movement more noticeable (I don’t have a tripod so it’s little unstable), and the second (in this link since I can only do one per post) is a real time video since those aren’t as common and I wanted to contribute one. The downward strokes seem to be the most noticeable to the naked eye.
