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Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

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Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

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Saturday - February 28, 2009

From: Modesto, CA
Region: California
Topic: General Botany
Title: Plants addicted to caffeine
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Im doing a science project on if plants can get addicted to caffeine, but coffee in general and i was wondering what materials you need to figure that out.

ANSWER:

The best tool to figure that out is the one you used to contact us-the Internet. Just as a test, we Googled on "caffeine and plants." The following websites came up, along with a whole lot more:

From the MadSci Network: Botany, Caffeine and The Effects of Caffeine on Plants. These were just the first two, and both had a bunch more links. Just keep following links and reading the information until you get the help you need.

 

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