Can plants solve a crime? An experiment

The experiment did not specify what plant was used.

To see if a plant could display memory, an experiment was conducted by scientists. A group of 6 students that included some veteran policemen were blindfolded. They drew from a hat that contained folded slips of paper, on one of which were instructions to root up, stamp on, and thoroughly destroy one of two plants in a room. The criminal was to commit the crime in secret. Neither the scientists nor any of the other students was to know his identity. Only the second plant would be a witness. The attached the surviving plant to a polygraph and paraded the students one by one before it, to see if the plant could identify the culprit. The surviving plant gave no reaction to 5 of the students but caused the meter to go wild whenever the actual culprit approached. The scientists concluded that a plant could remember and recognize the source of severe harm to its fellow.

​References Tompkins, Peter, and Christopher Bird. The Secret Life of Plants. No. QK50. T65I 1973. England: Penguin books, 1989.