Parlez-vous plantais? Some say ouid,
Talk is cheap, and some say that talk directed at plants
' leads the league in cheapness. Contrary to popular belief,
plants aren't like people they don't talk back. There may be
!safety in silence, but not even a dumb cane (Dieffenbachia)
should have to put up withlll the less than cool air tossed in its
direction.
Putting aside the casual types such as Mary Hartman's
mother (her words are hardly tender) and the ones who try to
verbally charm their snake plants, those who religiously
speak to (and for) their green youngsters should be con
sidered. The Rev. Franklin Loehr followed up some extensive
interviewing (of people) with "The Power of Prayer in
Plants," a book which declares that "two out of three prayed
for plants come out ahead."
According to reliable opinions, however, people who speak When rhetoric isn't flooding the plant chambers, music is
their minds in the plant *room probably do have healthier apt to be. Rare is the individual who will say that music isn't
green growth than those who stifle themselves. There's an good for most anything, including plants. But imagine the
outside chance that this is because the more loquacious lend a poor philodendron recently subjected to 11 solid hours of
little extra carbon dioxide (the gas that greens get off on) Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BLT). The demented student
to the plant's immediate atmosphere. A more likely ex- who'spun the discs insists that his plant suffered no ill effects,
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Green Thumbs
` Applications now being taken for:
USG SUPREME
COURT ASSOCIATE
JUSTICES
3 positions opening
. . for Fall Term 1976
Applications Available
in 214. HUB
Deadline May 13, 1976
COMPLIMENTS OF THE PENN STATE BOOKSTORE
By KEITH BARNES
Collegian Staff Writer
planation is that the garrulous grower tends to pay more at
tention to a plant's basic needs and the tender words, although
of little value, do no harm.
• UNIVERSITY CALENDAR
Wednesday, May 12 1976
• SPECIAL EVENtS
•
Sports: Men's baseball, vs. Indiana, Pa., 1: 30 p.m.
University Theatre, "Jazz Dance Theatre in Concert," 8 p:m., Playhouse Theatre.
Dr. Franklin Littell, religious studies, Temple University, on "Christianity and the
Holocaust in the Age of Genocide," 8 p.m., HUB assembly room.
Composers' Concert, 8:30 p.m., Music Bldg. recital hall.
SEMINAR
Fuel Science, 4 p.m., Room 301 Mineral Industries. Dr. Alan Davis, geology, on
"Occurrence of Pyrite in Coals."
MEETINGS •
NSCAR, 8 p.m., Room 60 Willard. Alfredo Lopez, USA chief of PSP, on "Puerto Rican
Liberation and Struggles in USA."
PSU Sports Car Club, 7:30 p.m., Room 367 Willard.
Nittany Grotto, 7:30 p.m., Room 217 Willard.
National Student Coalition against Racism, 8 p.m., Room 320 HUB.
EXHIBITS
Museum of Art: Portraits USA: 1776-1976.
Zoller Gallery: MFA show by Brigitte Henry and William Diaz, painters, and Fred
Snitzer, sculptor.
HUB Gallery: Retrospective exhibit of work by French architect Auguste Perret.
HUB Main Lounge: Suiting Everyone (Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service).
Kern Gallery: Bruce Johnson, Watercolors. Ist Annual Graduate Commons Sculp
ture Invitational.
Chambers Gallery: Undergraduate Student Exhibition, all media.
Pattee .Library: East Corridor Gallery: Drawings and, Prints by Allan Larkin.
Lending Services Cobby - Drawings by Neil Feather.
NITTANY MALL
,t r 4l hfc,
State College • Bellefonte
Choose It! Charge It! Penn Traffic Underfashions
• Shop Penn Traffic 9:30 to 9:30 Daily •
but the jury is still out on whether Phil has been launched
into a state of permanent dormancy. Incidently, b-b-baby, the
11 hours of BLT did claim a roommate, the late Dogwood
Bumstead (12th-Strictly Business).
Some explain that it's the quality of the sound and not the
type of music that matters. Jerry Baker (author of "Plants
Are Like People") places plants on top of his stereo and says,
"no question about it, plants respond to the vibrations in the
bass speakers." Baker does other strange things to plants
( like soaping his lawn), but still sells a lot of books.
Recognizing a good thing when he hears it, George Milstein
has capitalized on the various theories by recording "Music to
Grow Plants By," available from Environmental Sounds. At
least one reviewer has described the tunes therein as "nothing
more than a sonic hum." At least one gardening columnist
feels that the record is nothing more than.a sonic rip-off that
any pet frock fancier should be proud to own.
The Daily Collegian Wednesday, May 12, 1976
some node
Anyway, a professor of botany at the University of Vermont,
Richard Klein, went berserk a few years back and played
recordings of Gregorian chants, Mozart, Dave Brubeck,
Beatles and striptease music to several groups of dwarf
marigolds twice a day. At the end of one month, he measured
the plants for size, weight and number of flowers. In a report
that surprised no one, Klein concluded that, "there was ab
solutely no difference."
The final words (it is hoped hopefully) on plant com
munication come from this until now unpublished report by a
local plant expert. His conclusive evidence suggests that what
plants really like best (next to light, heat, water, fertilizer and
no kittens) are: country music lyrics, New Yorker cartoons,
professional wrestling, puns, soap operas, Jerzy Kosinski and
( gawrsh) love. Like people, plants have their prejudices, Um
it's only appropriate in this, the Biasentennial year. And
that, loyal fans, just about thumbs it up.