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1media/Yellow Jewelweed Seeds (Impatiens pallida) by frozen seed capsules.jpg2019-04-07T23:44:42-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7a335195Moralityplain2019-08-10T19:39:57-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7aMoralityFor plants, morality is difficult to track, however, there is one example that makes at least some sense. Morality is often used to help push the concept of Ultimate Perfection forward: if a code of ethics attributed to a specific religion is followed, then Ultimate Perfection is closer to being attained.
For plants, if we remind ourselves, Ultimate Perfection includes imperviousness to herbivores and competitive plants. Impatiens pallida, or yellow jewelweed, can recognize its own kin, according to 2012 studies by Guillermo Murphy. The plants are demonstrating for the first time that an above-ground consequence has a below-ground cause. The roots of the yellow jewelweed recognize roots of other jewelweeds in close proximity, and in response to this, the plant will not compete for sunlight or root space with its kin. The leaves are smaller, the height is diminished and the jewelweed plants around the first jewelweed are equally as healthy, whereas the foreign species of plants were choked out, the leaves were very large and spread to cast shade over all the plants in its immediate vicinity that were not of the jewelweed family.
This is not dissimilar to a ritual of peaceful congregation, wherein the exclusivity of a religious tradition requires the choking out of its surrounding non-believers. While it may not necessarily be exactly altruism in plants, the jewelweed does show signs of not only recognizing one of its own family members, but of having the ability to confer what happens below ground to what happens above ground, and the ability to have some rudimentary understanding of the consequences of selfish outward growth.