Why do my plant's leaves move on their own? There is no wind. I researched it & below is what I found!
Because…… the plant is a living, breathing organism, and sometimes it just needs to adjust itself, or shake itself off, or do any number of other things.
We radically and habitually underestimate the “aliveness” of plants. They are just as alive as any animal. They have all the same fundamental needs - food, water, safety, reproduction. They actually have all the same response speed, they’re just very, very good at using as little energy as possible. So instead of running away from predators, they use chemical warfare to make themselves impossible to eat. Or instead of supporting their own weight, vines may climb themselves up on trees.
Now, the way they do this without muscles, the method, is by changing the water pressure on each side of the stem. If there’s more water pressure on one side of a branch than the other, the branch will bend in the opposite direction, so that allows the plant to twist and bend in the required directions.
Certain plants make these adjustments more quickly than others, one of the faster is called the “dancing plant”, Codariocalyx motorius, the video shows it. It’s nothing dramatic, it’s just a demonstration of the “aliveness” of plants; other plants often do the same thing, just more slowly: