The plant that twitters when it's thirsty

People always used to laugh when Prince Charles talked to his plants. Now, thanks to Twitter and a software called Botanicalls, the plants can talk back.

The leading actor in the Botanicalls realm seems to be a plant called Pothos.

Please don't ask me what kind of plant Pothos is. I can barely tell an oak tree from a park bench. However, he (can a plant be a "he"?) has more than 2,600 followers and--suggesting Pothos might be a little on the self-centered side--Pothos is following no one.

I have reason to believe this may be the actual Mr. Ikea Plant. Please note that he seems to surf the Web while he drinks.

(Credit: CC DP Styles)

Botanicalls' software is very simple. It hooks your plant to its own Twitter page and the plant feeds information straight to your cell phone. Most of the information, strangely, is about feeding.

Pothos has already offered 151 updates. Gems such as "Water me please." And "Thank you for watering me." Or even "You didn't water me enough."

This is not purely 140 characters (or less) of information. Pothos tweets his emotions too. For example: "URGENT! Water me!" a message he sent, rather unsocially, at 6:09 a.m. on March 6.

Botanicalls was created through a collaboration of four people--Rebecca Bray, Robert Faludi, Kate Hartman and Kati London--who have extremely large and sensitive brains. And who could not be moved by the company's stated aim of promoting "successful inter-species understanding"?

Because I am someone desperate to understand at least one species in the world, I am a little disappointed that Pothos reveals so little about himself on his Twitter page. He merely reveals that he is a Botanicalls plant.

Which is why I am grateful to CNET's Caroline McCarthy for pointing me in the direction of the Twitter page belonging to Mr. Ikea Plant.

Mr. Ikea Plant is really into successful inter-species understanding. He reveals that he is a plant that Dennis Crowley bought at IKEA for $7. And, at least sometimes, he seems to get even more attention than he deserves.

On the evening of December 10 he tweeted: "Ease off, buddy. You over-watered me."

However, I am concerned he may have a split personality, rather than a split leaf, that may need substantial treatment. Because shortly before his "ease up" request, he simply twittered: "Current moi."

How many of your plants are such divas that they twitter in French, huh?

[Cole_Brodine]

I think the Botanicalls system is actually pretty old. Didn't it start off actually calling you on the phone when it needed watered? Twitter must be a newer thing it does.

[bbnet2000]

nice...something useful for my twitter account.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@bbnet2000,

I am here to serve. Even if I don't have the patience for plants.

Thank you for commenting.

Chris

[wusupjohn]

gems such as "vote for obama"

[pjscullion]

I mean, Twitter's cool, and plants are cool... but honestly, if you can't remember to water plants once or twice a week, maybe you shouldn't have plants. Or pets.

I'm a really forgetful guy, and even I have managed to save my Christmas Cactus from drying out... without the use of Twitter to tell me so.

[Dalkorian]

What about the sick and twisted individual who's curious as to how far this twittering will go? How dry can it get and still twitter? What would it's last twitter be? Can it be saved after that and tortured some more? If so, what would it tell the world then? What else will make it tattle to the world on me, what if I electrocute it? Would it consider waterboarding as torture? (Doubtful!)

It's not a person folks or even an animal, it's a plant. If it has feelings, I neither know or care about them. It's just a plant. That said, this is a cute idea for today's moron who needs to have plants (because they make air!) but isn't responsible enough to care for them without prompting.

[cvaldes1831]

Perhaps this is a phony like the "Christopher Walken" Twitter feed.