What happens when plants talk back?

From ant plant meditations to orchid jokes, an interactive exhibition opening at Cambridge University Botanic Garden gives a voice to rare specimens.

One plant visitors will have the chance to speak to is St Helena Ebony, a plant who is dignified, deeply tied to her home and a survivor against the odds.

In a world first for botanic gardens, plants at Cambridge University Botanic Garden (CUBG) will be given a voice this spring, as a new experiment invites visitors to have real-time conversations with plants using artificial intelligence.

From 11 February to 12 April, a new interactive, experimental exhibition, Talking Plants, lets visitors chat with 20 rare and wonderful specimens in the Garden’s iconic Glasshouse Range.

By scanning a QR code with a smartphone, visitors can ask questions and receive answers that blend horticultural insight with personal stories from the plants. The two-way conversation can be voice or text-based.

As well as conversing, the plants will be able to tell a joke, play trivia games and even guide visitors on a meditation. There will also be suggested prompt questions to help the conversation flow such as ‘What’s it like to be pollinated by a bat?' or ‘Are humans helping you or are we getting in the way?'

Dr Raphaella Hull, Head of Learning, meets Hugh the Firmoss

Jade the Vine

Tumbo the Welwitschia

Titus Junior the Titan Arum

Designed to be playful and welcoming for all ages, while drawing directly on the vast expertise of the Garden’s staff and researchers, each plant in the exhibition has been given its own name and distinct personality, designed to reflect aspects of its biology, history or cultural associations.

Visitors might encounter Jade, the Vine, the sassy ceiling-swinger of the Tropics House; Tumbo the Welwitschia, characterised as dry-witted and defiantly stubborn; Titus Junior the Titan Arum, blunt, dramatic and famously foul-smelling; or St Helena Ebony, who is dignified, deeply tied to her home and a survivor against the odds.

The conversations give visitors a relaxed, engaging way to discover plant stories at their own pace. Talking Plants is designed to spark questions, encourage exploration and invite moments of surprise – adding an extra layer to the experience, rather than replace human expertise.

The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Nature Perspectives - a conservation organisation developing AI models, backed by science, to enable people to have meaningful conversations with the natural world. It is both a visitor experience and a live experiment, inviting people to ask questions and follow their curiosity, discovering more about each plant’s habitat, life cycle, ecological role and cultural significance.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden is the first botanic garden to implement this technology in this way, inspired by earlier pioneering work at the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge.

The exhibition will also prove useful for the team in exploring how artificial intelligence can be used for public information and research, and how digital tools might support deeper understanding of, and care for, biodiversity.

The ground-breaking AI experiment is hosted on renewable-powered servers. Based on approximately 10,000 conversations logged on the Nature Perspectives platform to January 2026, an average conversation consumes 40.46 Wh of energy, produces 14.16 g CO₂e, and uses 186.9 mL of water. This is roughly the equivalent to sending one email with an attachment, or driving an average passenger car for approximately 60 metres.

“Plants shape our world in profound ways. Like all living organisms, they must acquire resources, cope with extreme conditions, reproduce, and ensure the survival of their next generation. Plants do all of this while remaining rooted in place, and have evolved a vast range of sophisticated solutions, even if they are often overlooked or taken for granted.

“Talking Plants is a playful way to change that, using artificial intelligence to help visitors engage with the biology, ecology and culture of the plants in our Living Collections. It is not about replacing our human expertise, but about finding new ways to stimulate learning and wonder about the plant kingdom. We hope it will give us new insight into how to best engage people with important messages about biodiversity loss and environmental change, which will influence all our learning programmes.”
Professor Sam Brockington, Curator of Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Professor of Evolution at Cambridge University

Professor Sam Brockington stands in front of The Glasshouse Range where the talking plants can be found.

Professor Sam Brockington stands in front of The Glasshouse Range where the talking plants can be found.

“Much of how we engage with nature today is one-way: we observe it, learn about it, and admire it from a distance. At Nature Perspectives, we enable a shift toward conversation - encouraging attentiveness, imagination, and new ways of relating to the living world. We’re shifting from learning about nature to learning from and with it. This shift is especially important with plants, which often go unnoticed or are poorly understood. Cambridge University Botanic Garden is an ideal partner for exploring how these kinds of encounters can deepen public engagement with the plant world."
Gal Zanir, Co-Founder & CEO of Nature Perspectives

The CUBG team behind Talking Plants

The CUBG team behind Talking Plants

For the team at CUBG, Talking Plants is a chance to explore how they might further help people connect more deeply with plants, biodiversity and the Garden’s Living Collections.

Talking Plants opens at Cambridge University Botanic Garden on Wednesday 11 February and runs until Sunday 12 April.

No booking is required, access is included in Garden admission ticket (children 16 and under are free) and the exhibition is suitable for all ages.

For more information visit the dedicated page on the CUBG website or read some frequently asked questions about the AI experiment.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Date: 10 February 2026
Story and design: Jessica Keating
Photo credits:

Photos of team members and video of Dr Raphaella Hull: Lloyd Mann / University of Cambridge
Photos of the plants: Cambridge University Botanic Garden
Lead video of St Helena Ebony: Nature Perspective